Tropentag 2019 - Student blog - Biodiversity

Meet the Speakers: Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher

De-Registered User — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 04:00:33 +0000

Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher is Director General of the Ethiopian Environmental Protection Authority and Councillor at the World Future Council. He received his PhD in 1969 and is Ethiopia’s first plant ecologist. Most of his working life has been in academia, and he has been the Dean of Science at Addis Ababa University and President of Asmara University. He also served as Director of the Ethiopian Conservation Strategy Secretariat. During the 1990s Dr. Egziabher put much of his energy into negotiations at the various biodiversity-related fora, especially the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the FAO. During this time, he built up a strong group of well-prepared African negotiators who began to take the lead in the G77 and China Group. Africa came out with united, progressive positions such as no patents on living materials and the recognition of community rights.

Scientists flee as China's leading rainforest restoration project is devastated by 'controlled' fire

De-Registered User — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 17:42:40 +0000

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.

Free Conservation Knowledge for all!

De-Registered User — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 16:10:55 +0000

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.

"Yam endangered and under-researched" says important African food crop

De-Registered User — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 11:41:54 +0000

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.

The September issue of Biotropica offers a special section in tropical biodiversity

De-Registered User — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 14:04:19 +0000

In recognition of the United Nations' declaration of 2010 as the 'International Year of Biodiversity', the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) has included a special section on biodiversity in its September 2010 issue of Biotropica. The section includes 16 commentaries assembled by Jaboury Ghazoul, an ecologist at ETH Zurich and Editor-in-Chief of Biotropica. The editorials cover a wide range of issues relating to tropical biodiversity.