Reporting from China: A fire has ravaged one of the world's most advanced projects for rainforest restoration projects following the Rainforestation Farming technology, previously presented in Tropentag conferences. The blaze conferred a biological damage of increased significance as many acres of precious forest were burned. An international delegation of researchers and sponsors had to make an emergency evacuation of the site as the fire engulfed the project, designed and implemented by the TianZi Biodiversity Research & Development Center, in collaboration with numerous international partners. Hundreds of local people have been fighting the blaze at the site of the project in the Bulang mountains of Xishuangbanna in the Yunnan Province of China, but they have been unable to prevent a severe loss of bio-culture.

Did you ask yourself... Without access to the 100 million man-hours that have been put into Wikipedia, how much do you actually know? Without your contacts in online social networks how much do you accomplish? Without access to the news, weather, your bank account-- how in charge of your life are you? And did you expect that Facebook could be far more than a senseless medium for "gossip" and entertainment, but also a powerful platform for promoting democratic change? The Internet has transformed what it means to be human, as we are now more connected to one another than ever before. Yet, over 5 billion people don't even know Google exists! Left out without a voice in the global dialog, or the opportunity to share ideas and learn from the Internet's ever-expanding knowledge pool. Did you ever imagine a world, where isolated rural communities harness the power of information to enhance their quality of life and to be on par with their peers in developed urban centres and peoples of this world? And where people get to see real-time what are the implications of urban lifestyle on those areas? We will be always running out of time with reaching the Millenium Development Goals, unless we keep having big ideas. And this is exactly what an international team of young innovators tries to do: Dreaming, guiding, and believing in the vision of a connected planet, they ask you to... Buy a Satellite so you can provide free bandwidth to those who need it most!

The global biodiversity crisis will require the next generation of scientists to be in a better position to safeguard the planet's biocultural diversity. This is particularly relevant for researchers from tropical countries where the potential benefits of knowledge application are greatest. Although the tropics are home to the greatest species diversity and the richest centers of endemism, students and young researchers in developing countries remain under-resourced and find it difficult to access comprehensive textbooks on natural resource conservation. In an effort to make conservation knowledge available as widely as possible, some of the top names in ecology and conservation biology make a major conservation textbook available as a download in a free and open access format. Conservation for All addresses hot topics including balancing conversion and human needs, tropical deforestation, invasive species, climate change and ecosystem functioning by clearly stating the challenges but also offering solutions. Feel free to share this textbook with your colleagues and research partners in the field.

The following international scientific events and conferences have opened their registrations and are calling for paper submissions: The R User Conference 2011 will take place at the University of Warwick , Coventry on 16-18 August 2011. The conference is organized by the Department of Statistics, University of Warwick and supported by the R Foundation for Statistical Computing . Prior to the conference, on Monday 15 August 2011, tutorials will be offered at the conference website . Each tutorial has a length of 3 hours and takes place either in the morning or afternoon. Early registration & abstracts submission deadline: 1st April 2011. Registration deadline: 27th May 2011 The 2011 IASC European conference is organized by the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) . This year’s conference will be hosted by the Agricultural University of Plovdiv , Bulgaria on 14-18 September 2011 under the topic “Shared Resources in a Rapidly Changing World”. Prominent keynote speakers, including Jouni Paavola, Konrad Hagedorn, Marco Janssen, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Susan Buck and Tine de Moore, have agreed to participate.

October is the month of increased attention on hunger and poverty, with special focus on the future and nature of international aid. Twenty-two countries are facing enormous challenges like repeated food crises and an extremely high prevalence of hunger due to a combination of natural disasters, conflict, and weak institutions. These countries are in what is termed a protracted crisis, FAO said in its “State of Food Insecurity in the World 2010” hunger report, jointly published today with the World Food Programme (WFP). The current aid architecture needs to be modified to better address both immediate needs and the structural causes of protracted crises. Findings of the 2010 hunger report will be discussed by members of the newly reformed Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in Rome (11-16 October 2010). This happens while Tropentag keynote speaker Paul Collier blogs about the need for international aid that is subject to the same standards of integrity and transparency, while one of the most important donors' vision for "feeding the world" is questioned.

An opportunity for funding cutting-edge research that delivers improved understanding of how ecosystem function, the services they provide, the full value of these services, and their potential role in achieving sustainable poverty reduction was announced through the Ecosystems Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA). ESPA's goal is to ensure that, in developing countries, ecosystems are being sustainably managed in a way that contributes to poverty reduction and inclusive/sustainable growth. This announcement of opportunity invites proposals for research consortium projects that will address this agenda. All projects are required to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) through the web-based form by the closing date of 8 December 2010.

A student initiative called FRESH (acronym for Food Revitalisation & Eco-Gastronomic Society of Hohenheim) have been working for almost two years to suggest, fundraise and conceptualize a new course module on the Ethics of Food & Nutrition Security. Among the other actions of FRESH are a very fertile organic student garden in campus and leading the dialogue for more regional, more seasonal and more ethical food in the University canteen. This is the first module of this nature in Germany, where students not only request, but are also actively involved in its design and facilitation. The course is now in the study programme of the University of Hohenheim and since Monday, September 27, open for registrations.

Do we know enough about all crops of the world before we step into teasing evolution within the pool of a tiny number of species? Not well discussed and not well understood, an important tropical crop in Africa and other parts of the world reports: "Yam not a grain, yet I feed 60 million people every day. Yam a productive and valuable crop for farmers, getting as large as 2.5 meters long and weigh up to 70 kilograms. However, you know so little about how much I can give". Read the full story about the efforts of the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT) for saving endangered yams in this month's Scientific American.