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Rainforest Farm Fire
China - 11 Mar 11 A fire in China’s Bulang Mountains in Yunnan province last
week has destroyed around 90% of the TianZi Biodiversity Research &
Development Center, home to a revolutionary rainforest farming system. More
than 3.5 million seedlings, 6 tons of seeds and hundreds of thousands of
orchids were wipes out and hundreds of families
>From venaurafarm@bellsouth.net Sat Mar 12 22:19:41 2011
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What an incredible loss. Thought I'd copy the text to the list:
Rainforest Farm Fire
China - 11 Mar 11
A fire in China’s Bulang Mountains in Yunnan province last week has
destroyed around 90% of the TianZi Biodiversity Research & Development
Center, home to a revolutionary rainforest farming system. More than 3.5
million seedlings, 6 tons of seeds and hundreds of thousands of orchids
were wipes out and hundreds of families - who have formed a food
community in Slow Food’s Terra Madre network - have lost their livelihoods.
The TianZi site was launched around five years ago by the late German
biologist Josef Margraf and his Chinese wife Minguo, who pioneered a
“rainforest farming” technique with local communities to recreate a
species rich habitat on land that had been previously cleared for a
rubber plantation.
“This is a heartbreaking setback for a project of crucial importance to
the living heritage of Xishuangbanna region,” said project director
Minguo Li-Margraf. “We are deeply distressed at the loss of many years
of work, but we must try to start again. It's too important to give up."
The project also worked to create income for local small-scale farmers
through the cultivation of orchids, tea, honey and other products in the
forest. The Mountain Forest Puer Tea food community who grew the unique
Pu'Er Tea, a large-leafed tea indigenous to the region, joined Slow
Food’s Terra Madre network last year.
“We are deeply concerned for the 586 families that are part of the Terra
Madre Mountain Forest Pu'er Tea community, and their farm which was home
to many Chinese endemic and rare wild plant species that are constantly
threatened by rubber and tea monocultures.” said Slow Food Asia and
Oceania project coordinator Carlotta Baitone.
“The destruction caused by the fire certainly represents a severe loss
and a defeat in the fight of the community for the preservation of
bio-culture, but we are comforted knowing that the community is strong
and we will support them in pursuing their efforts to safeguard the
region’s biodiversity.”
Pavlos Georgiadis, leader of Slow Food Thrace in Greece, was in the area
as part of his doctoral research, and said: “I witnessed the appalling
images of the disaster during and after it. More than 30,000 wild tree
seedlings were lost, as well as thousands of wild orchid specimens that
had been saved from deforested land that was being given over to rubber
monocultures.”
As a project designed and implemented with numerous international
collaborators, an international delegation of partners, researchers and
sponsors who had to make an emergency evacuation of the site are
mourning its loss. “Its horrific,” Prof Friedhelm Goeltenboth, of the
University of Hohenheim told The Guardian. "This model, which is
recognized internationally as one of the most advanced of its type in
the world, is now going up in flames."
For more information on the TianZi project:
www.natureproducts.net
To contact the TianZi project coordinator:
Minguo Li-Margraf
minguo@natureproducts.net
[permaculture] Fw: fire at Yunnan biodiversity centre,
wenshidi@yahoo.co.uk, 03/12/2011