April 30, 2010 - World Association of Soil and Water Conservation

More documents

Recommendations

Info

CALL FOR PAPERSThe water issueWater is a scarce resource, and one which is unevenly distributed. Estimates say that only onepercent of the world’s water resources are fresh and renewable, and thus available for man’smany uses.Agriculture uses 70 percent of this, and much more water is required if we are to increase production. Populationgrowth, deforestation, urbanisation, industrialisation, and certainly climate change, all point to a worseningsituation. How are small-scale farmers, and the institutions that support them, getting ready to tackle thissituation?Can we be more efficient?At least 60 percent of the world’s food is produced under rainfed conditions. For the millions of farmers who donot have access to irrigation, an uneven distribution of water means much lower yields, and therefore lessproduction. Providing irrigation water is expensive, and irrigated areas also face difficulties. The overexploitationof groundwater has dramatically reduced its availability, while many canal-irrigated fields have become salinised– with the Aral Sea, in the old Soviet Union, as the best example of a manmade disaster.If water is an increasingly scarce resource, how do we ensure its availability for agriculture, and also forsanitation and all our other needs? What steps are being taken in order to diminish uncertainty, or in order tomake the best decisions? What rights, and what possibilities, do small-scale farmers have in order to increaseyields, and improve their livelihoods? In this coming issue of Farming Matters we want to explore how groups offarmers, communities, or various stakeholders are working together, look at the co-ordinated steps which areneeded at a watershed level, and at the possibilities for improving our overall efficiency.Send us an e-mail!The AgriCultures Network welcomes your contributions for our September issues. Featuring practicalexperiences from the field, our regional editions will look at micro-irrigation techniques, storing water, or at locallevel co-ordination approaches. Our global edition, Farming Matters, will complement the regional editions,addressing water management from a broader perspective. How can policies support small-scale farmers inimproving their access to water? How can good governance ensure a more prudent, less wasteful use of water,and promote the production and consumption of water efficient crops? How can urban planners create space forurban agriculture that uses recycled wastewater? And finally, how can we, as a global movement for sustainablefamily farming, argue the case for low carbon agriculture as it implies better water management and greaterresilience against drought and floods?Send us your suggestions for articles, the articles themselves, photographs, names of people you feel we shouldtalk to, ideas for topics you feel we must definitely address, your opinion, or just information about the issuesmentioned above. As we are a global network, your contribution is bound to be useful to one of the editions.You can send your ideas to Jorge Chavez-Tafur, editor, at j.chavez-tafur@ileia.org before May 15 th , 2010. Formore information on the AgriCultures Network, see www.agriculturesnetwork.org.A CALL FOR YOUR ATTENTION (some may want to ask for help)▲ Do you believe in Global Warming?Environmentalist Robert Kennedy, Jr. said:"Ninety-eight percent of the research climatologists in the world say that global warming is real, that its impactsare going to be catastrophic," he argued. "There are 2 percent who disagree with that. I have a choice ofbelieving the 98 percent or the 2 percent."http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124008307▲ CLIR Call for Proposal on Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives Libraries,archives, and cultural institutions hold millions of items that have never been adequately described. According toa 1998 Association of Research Libraries' survey of 99 North American research universities' special collections,on average 15 percent of their printed volumes, 27 percent of manuscripts, and 35 percent and 37 percent ofvideo and audio, respectively, are unprocessed or uncataloged. Nationally, this represents a staggering volumeof items of potentially substantive intellectual value that are unknown and inaccessible to scholars. Readmore:http://cambodiajobs.blogspot.com/2010/03/clir-call-for-proposal-on-cataloging.html26
▲ Britain facing food crisis as world's soil 'vanishes in 60 years'You may need to read this article, as soil could be distinct in 60 years:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/farming/6828878/Britain-facing-food-crisis-as-worlds-soil-vanishesin-60-years.htmlfrom Dr. Pandi Zdruli, CIHEAM IAM Bari, Italy pandi@iamb.it▲ Free membership in ISTRO for new PhDs – a good ideaA reminder that ISTRO members involved in supervising doctoral students are reminded that ISTRO will honoreach new PhD in soil-tillage related fields with a free 3-year Membership of ISTRO and a free 1-yearsubscription to our journal - Soil & Tillage Research. New PhD’s should be nominated by one of their graduateadvisors / promoters who must be an existing ISTRO Member by sending an email to the Secretary General ofISTRO. Again details are on the ISTRO website (http://iworx5.webxtra.net/~istroorg/p_frame.htm)Contact Blair M. McKenzie, Assistant Secretary General Blair.McKenzie@scri.ac.uk for more information▲ Earthworms on Mars: The first successful Mars rover was Sojourner. It was launched by NASA inDecember 1996 and landed in July 1997. It was the first to use a new radical landing technique whereby theimpact of the spacecraft was mitigated by its placement inside a multi-cell balloon that bounced and rolled acrossthe Martian surface, killing its momentum. Mars rover Spirit was launched in June 2003 and Opportunity waslaunched in July 2003. The computer used in these rovers was a radiation hardened PowerPC called the IBMRAD6000. Both have made a large series of spectroscopic measurements and high resolution images.Computerized 3D temporal analysis of these images has shown the existence of earthworm casts in severallocations of the Meridiani Planum. Dr Edmundo Folderal from the University of Baltiland is an expert in extraterrestrialsoil ecology and confirms the findings: “These results came totally unexpected and show the fruitfulinteraction between technology and the power of imagination.” The paper will be published in Nature thismonth; more information here. (From IUSS Alert 60)WHAT MEMBERS WROTE TO US▲ From Yash Kalra Yash.Kalra@NRCan-RNCan.gc.caAfter working with the Government of Canada for more than 42 years, I will be retiring on April 28,2010 (http://intranet.nrcan.gc.ca/archives/features/2010/04/14/soil-science).Effective tomorrow my email address will be yashpk1@hotmail.comEd.: We wish you a happy retirement, Yash. You are always welcome to use our pages to publishyour valued information or narration about your experience in soil, water, forest, air, and so and soaccumulated from your long academic journey. SamranINTERESTING QUOTES▲ Albert Einstein“When you sit witha nice girl for two hours,it seems like two minutes.When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes,it seems like two hours.That’s relativity.”“If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith.”“Gravity cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.”“Education is that which remains when one has forgotten everything learned in school.”“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the former.”“A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life, depend on the labours of other men,living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received.”27
Page 1 and 2: WASWAC HOT NEWS 2010 (04) APRIL 30,
Page 3 and 4: JOBS▲ The Wageningen Socio-Spatia
Page 5 and 6: Reviewing of applications will begi
Page 7 and 8: OBITUARYIECA Member Loved Dirt!IECA
Page 9 and 10: EAST BALI POVERTY PROJECTDavid J Bo
Page 11 and 12: CONTESTF AO International Art Compe
Page 13 and 14: change, conservation and slash-and-
Page 16 and 17: NEWSLETTERS/BROCHURES/BULLETINS/MAG
Page 18 and 19: focusing on different sustainabilit
Page 20 and 21: ▲ Charles Darwin, Earthquake Pred
Page 22 and 23: improving productivity in degraded
Page 25: ▲ Positive Link Between Populatio
Page 29 and 30: Low Impact DevelopmentStormwater Ma
Page 31 and 32: Conference organizers may ask for a
Page 33 and 34: The workshop explores how mobility
Page 35 and 36: Scientific CommitteeProf. Dr. Faisa
Page 37 and 38: May 25-29, 2010Fourth International
Page 39 and 40: On behalf of the organizing committ
Page 41 and 42: - Fabrice Renaud, United Nations Un
Page 43 and 44: SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEEKarim Abbaspour
Page 45 and 46: The Organizing Committee of the Cro
Page 47 and 48: October 11, 2010Hydrology Conferenc
Page 49 and 50: Author’s title, Department, Unive
Page 51 and 52: 2. GENERALES2.1 El horario y presen
Page 53 and 54: Conference “First Serbian Forestr
Page 55 and 56: problems that have implications for
Page 57 and 58: December 11-13, 2010Circular No-1Or
Page 59 and 60: ASADWA is sponsored byAnd organized
Page 61 and 62: Piboon Kanghae (Kasetsart Universit
Page 63 and 64: BioWise 2011 is where the most infl
Page 65: 3. For sending money by wire/bank t

April 30, 2010 - World Association of Soil and Water Conservation

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?