the blog from Environment and Society
A line of ants walking throughout a 5-liter white plastic recipient, wrapped in black trash bags and trespassed by roots, was my first experience with a landmine. This artifact enmeshed into nature and co-produced a toxic wilderness.
Read More “Weaponizing Nature: the co-production of Landmined Landscapes in the Colombian Amazon”
The latest Environment and Society featured article is now available! This month’s article—”Shared Meals and Food Fights: Geographical Indications, Rural Development, and the Environment”—comes from Volume 2 (2011). In their article, Fabio Parasecoli and Aya Tasaki highlight relevant issues within the global debate on geographical indications as they relate to food products, and they explore the environmental impact of geographical indications and their potential in ensuring the livelihood of rural communities in emerging economies and promoting sustainable agricultural models.
Visit the featured article page to download your copy of the article today before it’s gone! A new article is featured every month.
Quinoa’s Exceptional Interspecific Diversity
Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) has been cultivated in the Andean highlands for millennia. Domesticated five thousand to seven thousand years ago by agriculturalists living along the shores of Lake Titicaca, quinoa is one of only a handful of crops to survive in the Andean Altiplano’s harsh clime. In fact, quinoa thrives at altitudes between 2,500 and 3,900 MASL, where frequent droughts, constant aridity, and extreme diurnal temperature fluctuations present a formidable environment for most agricultural production (even hardy crops like maize and sweet potatoes that thrive just 1,000 meters closer to sea level, for instance, cannot bear fruit on the Altiplano).
Read More “Can Markets Save Agricultural Diversity?: Quinoa as a Case Study”