Food sovereignty and agrobiodiversity

Produced by the Community Media Trust, a group of peasant women filmmakers, this DVD and publication highlights the different ways the community has worked towards sustaining their own food systems, dynamically conserved their biodiversity and regenerated livelihoods in a semi arid region.

Treaty!

All eyes will be on us come this Thursday. Here is the trend in voting so far according to an Irish Times poll.

Apples no longer all in one basket!

Almost a year ago I did a posting on apples which arose as a result of a posting on the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog (who as usual are ahead of me and have posted on this in detail and well worth reading) about the precarious nature of the national apple collection at Brogdale. Here is an update from the Telegraph about the 'privatisation' of the collection. I assume that amateur gardeners and others will still have access to the many varieties.

Co-operation on health and biodiversity

Here is a very interesting and worthwhile initiative and it is housed in our own backyard, Galway to be exact. The COHAB Initiative is an international programme established to respond to the gaps in awareness and existing policies on issues linking biodiversity with human health and well-being. The Initiative aims to establish an international, inter-disciplinary collaborative framework to support existing activities on international development, biodiversity conservation and population health, and to contribute to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.

The Second International COHAB Conference on Health & Biodiversity took place from Monday 25th to Thursday 28th February 2008 in Galway City, Ireland and brought 170 delegates from over 70 countries together, from all disciplines and backgrounds, to collaborate on new approaches for protecting human health and well-being through the conservation and sustainable use of the world's biological diversity.

Those of you with a particular interest in human health and how it depends on biodiversity might be interested in the new publication 'Sustaining Life'.