Category Archives: Biodiversity

Africa / Asia / Biodiversity / Climate Change / Ethiopia / Fodder / Forages / Genebank / ILRI / Latin America / Seeds

ILRI forage germplasm stored in Addis genebank travels to the Arctic’s Svalbard Global Seed Vault

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‘The Svalbard Global Seed Vault celebrated its third anniversary with the arrival of seeds for rare lima beans, blight-resistant cantaloupe, and progenitors of antioxidant-rich red tomatoes from Peru and the Galapagos Islands. The arrival of these collections, including many drought- and flood-resistant varieties, comes at a time when natural and man-made risks to agriculture have … Continue reading →

Animal Production / Asia / Biodiversity / ILRI / Indigenous Breeds / Livestock / Pakistan / South Asia

ILRI and University of Agriculture Faisalabad join forces on indigenous livestock

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Pakistan’s ‘Business Recorder’ reports from a workshop in Pakistan on the “implementation of development and application of decision support tools to conserve and sustainability use and genetic diversity in indigenous livestock and wild relatives” where the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF) have signed a collaborative agreement. The main … Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / Asia / Biodiversity / Environment / Film and video / Ghana / Indigenous Breeds / Livelihoods / NRM / Southeast Asia / Trade / Vietnam / West Africa / WLE

Here be dragons–and lions: Agricultural growth and development in Asia and Africa

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Dragon head detail on a gate to the walled Citadel of Hué, the former, imperial, capital of Viet Nam from the 17th to 19th centuries and national capital until 1945. Located in the middle of the country along the Perfume River, Hué’s Citadel, like Beijing’s Forbidden City, housed only emperors and their concubines and closest … Continue reading →

Animal Breeding / Biodiversity / Indigenous Breeds / Livestock

More action to safeguard animal genetic diversity

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A growing number of countries are taking steps to catalogue, conserve and better manage the genetic diversity of livestock in order to help safeguard the resilience of the world’s food production systems, says an informal survey released recently by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Read more … (Stackyard.com) Continue reading →

Africa / Animal Breeding / Asia / Bangladesh / Biodiversity / ILRI / Indigenous Breeds / Pakistan / South Asia / Southeast Asia / Sri Lanka / Vietnam

ILRI calls for steps to conserve the animal genetic resources of developing countries

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‘The International Livestock Research Institute is calling for immediate, practical steps to preserve developing countries’ dwindling animal genetic diversity. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization says almost 10 percent of the world’s livestock breeds have become extinct in the last six years. Twenty percent of the 7,616 breeds documented in the FAO’s Global Databank … Continue reading →

Africa / Asia / Biodiversity / Indigenous Breeds / Latin America

UN meeting gives developing countries incentives for protecting their biodiversity

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‘A mandate created by the 193 participating nations, of which the United States is not a part, has ensured that countries will now have full jurisdiction over their genetic resources, and the resulting profits. ‘Countries will be able to collect compensation or royalties on any product made from a genetic resource within their borders. ‘This … Continue reading →

Biodiversity / Genetics / Knowledge and Information

Funding strategy for the implementation of the global plan of action for animal genetic resources

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The objective of the Funding Strategy is to enhance the availability, transparency, efficiency and effectiveness of the provision of substantial and additional financial resources, and to strengthen international cooperation to support and complement the efforts of developing countries and countries with economies in transition in the implementation of the Global Plan of Action for Animal … Continue reading →

Africa / Asia / Biodiversity / CGIAR / Environment / Indigenous Breeds / Latin America

Crop and livestock agricultural research centres welcome Nagoya Protocol

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A herdsboy rides one of his small native mountain buffaloes in northern Viet Nam (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). Bioversity International and the other 14 centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), including the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), welcome the Nagoya Protocol that was hammered out at the eleventh hour in the central … Continue reading →

Africa / Biodiversity / East Africa / Environment / NRM / Tanzania / Wildlife / WLE

‘Great Migration’ or ‘Great Poverty’: Can wildlife and humans both thrive in the Greater Serengeti ecosystem?

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Savanna grasslands of East Africa (photo credit: ILRI/Elsworth). The New York Times reports on the new road the Tanzanian government is planning on building through the northern Serengeti. Is this road, which could disrupt one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on earth, an economic imperative and an ecological disaster? An environmental imperative and an economic … Continue reading →

Biodiversity / Indigenous Breeds

To be or not to be: The fate of a whole lot of species hangs in the balance today

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The Lung Pu is an indigenous black pig of northern Viet Nam; this one is maintained on a biodiversity farm near the northern town of Meo Vac (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). From Agence France-Presse comes this cliffhanger of a news report today (20 October 2010), the final day of a 12-day United Nations summit on biodiversity. … Continue reading →