The Guardians of Diversity - a chef and an artist

This post is from a fascinating website DIVERSITY FOR LIFE  on The Guardians of Diversity which includes stories on farmers, community activists, scientists and scholars. Here are the stories of a chef and an artist. As yesterday was the International Day of Biological Diversity this is in keeping with that theme!

I am on the look out for more stories about people doing similar work - especially in the realm of seeds like the artist featured below. 


Claudio Bincoletto by RUTH on JULY 3, 2009

To most of us, nettles are bothersome weeds that have a nasty habit of stinging us when we are out walking or doing some gardening. But to Claudio Bincoletto nettles are an exquisite food that can boost the flavour of soups, omelettes and stews. In fact, nettles are very nutritious, and are an excellent source of calcium, magnesium and iron as well as a range of vitamins. And importantly, once you cook them, they no longer sting.

Bincoletto works as a chef and expert in wild foods, sharing his knowledge of ethnobotany and herbal traditions in cookery with restaurants and agricultural colleges and spreading the word about the value of biodiversity and the need to ensure its sustainable conservation. Claudio has also used his knowledge of wild plants to collaborate with rehabilitation centres in the UK that use foraging and gardening as complementary therapies in the rehabilitation process for former drug and alcohol addicts and for the treatment of depression.

Mitsuaki Tanabe  by RUTH on JULY 2, 2009

For the past 20 years, Mitsuaki Tanabe has been creating sculptures on a single motif: a grain of wild rice. This is no ordinary grain of rice but the ancestor of today’s cultivated rice, which is believed to have existed for no less than 10 000 years. Wild rice is a water plant, which maintains its life in wetlands and shallow bodies of water. This habitat is rapidly being lost as a result of economic development.

“When I encountered wild rice 20 years ago, I was inspired immensely as an artist,” said Tanabe. “I learned from scientists about wild rice and its habitats and I wanted to do what I could to make the situation better. I wanted to create artworks to make a strong visual impact on people and to inspire them to learn about the importance of biodiversity.”

Tanabe has given the International Rice Research Institute a 7.5 tonne sculpture of a rice seed for its Riceworld Museum. And on 1 April 2008, his latest work, ‘A Seed of Wild Rice MOMI-2008’, was installed by the Global Crop Diversity Trust at its headquarters in Rome, Italy. The stainless steel sculpture is 9 metres long and weighs about 250 kg.


NB the wonderful images originally posted here are no longer available at the site.

You are invited to come along on June 6 to the Japanese Garden for tea and seed stories in honour of World Environment Day - celebrating Biodiversity

Please click to enlarge for more information - you will see the contact details on the bottom left corner. This part of the garden is truly delightful and there are actually formal Japanese Tea Ceremonies held there from time to time. I will posts images of this garden soon so if you can come along that will be especially wonderful!

Children will be kept busy with special art activites and there will be two sessions for the story circle so bring a picnic if you like and definitely find those seeds you've been saving, or pods or just a story to tell.

I'm taking bookings even though is is definitely a free event as we would love to have an idea of numbers. If you come along at the last minute dont worry - we will try and squeeze you in...
Tea will be something fresh and herbal on this occasion ... but as we are celebrating Biodiversity you may wish to bring something you have grown that would make a lovely tea. And why not bring a prized cup if you would like....there'll be a story there!

If you would like to read the United Nations Secretary Generals message for WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY  or   WED 2010  I'm adding it below and it is also to be found here.

United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon

Biodiversity, the incredible variety of life on Earth that sustains us, is in peril. Species are becoming extinct at the fastest rate ever recorded. Most of these extinctions are tied to human activities that are polluting and depleting water resources, changing and degrading habitats and altering the global climate. From frogs to gorillas, from huge plants to tiny insects, thousands of species are in jeopardy.

The theme of this year’s World Environment Day, “Many Species. One Planet. One Future”, echoes the call of the International Year of Biodiversity to stop this mass extinction and raise awareness about the vital importance of the millions of species that inhabit our planet’s soils, forests, oceans, coral reefs and mountains. Our health, well-being and sustainable future depend on this intricate, delicate web of ecosystems and life.

The global host of the 2010 WED celebration is Rwanda. This small country in the Great Lakes region of Africa is rapidly earning a reputation as a green pioneer. Home to 52 threatened species, including the rare mountain gorilla, Rwanda is showing how environmental sustainability can be woven into the fabric of a country’s economic growth. Despite its many challenges, including poverty and widespread land degradation, the “land of a thousand hills” is working to reforest, embrace renewable energies, pursue sustainable agriculture and develop a green vision for the future.

This year, Kigali will be the heartbeat of a global, multicultural, intergenerational celebration of our planet, its millions of species and the countless ways in which life on Earth is interconnected. On World Environment Day, I appeal to everyone – from Kigali to Canberra, from Kuala Lumpur to Quito – to help us sound the alarm. Get involved, speak out. Learn and teach others. Show leadership and help clean up. Reconnect with nature, our life force. Together, we can develop a new vision for biodiversity: Many Species. One Planet. One Future.

click  BIODIVERSITY FACT SHEET: or click on each item to enlarge these pages below to read properly! ASIDE: Can I just say on a personal note that this is to date the most appealingly conceived, intelligently written and concise overview I've come across on Biodiversity for the general reader -

What is Biodiversity? 

Come 

 with us 

  on 

      a journey

it is easy to forget how mysterious and mighty stories are...

I was reading the lovely blog of Pia Jane Bijkerk this morning and under library found this image and notes here. It sent my thoughts back to the time I finally worked out (aged 30 something)  the name of a  book that had haunted my memories  years after a library teacher read it to my class in primary school. The slimmest of images kept floating back and so the discovery of the book years later was almost a shock, albeit a pleasant one. No wonder it had long haunted my memory... such a poignant tale of things being reborn - all centred around the discovery of the secret garden. Children it would seem need to be saturated in deep story, in stories that can live in them and work their way though their hearts and minds, soulfully, imaginatively.
Nigerian writer Ben Okri, winner of the 1991 Booker prize for literature, wrote in a small text The joys of Story-telling "stories are as ubiquitous as water or air, and as essential. There is not a single person who is not touched by the silent presence of stories".



Another book I must share in case you have not come across it is The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono. I was reminded of this book late last year when for the first time visiting the blog Four Season's in a Life of blogosphere friend Egmont Van Dyck. He wrote a wonderful post on this book (click here  for the post and overview!) which allowed me to track down somewhere to read this wonderful fable on the internet in case I could not find my own copy packed away!



This story I then read to an Art class of 12 yr olds girls one afternoon late last year. It was condensed into about 12 A4 pages - so quite a long tale, maybe a reading of about 20 minutes or more. They drew from this reading as the images came to them. Gestural representations of the ideas that seeped into their imaginations. Okri writes of stories "they can be either bacteria or light: they can infect a system, or illuminate a world." In discussing their drawings the girls commented they were fascinated that one person could make such a huge difference - this man who planted trees in the fable had gathered all the seeds( acorns) himself, and over years and years had regenerated forests in France - a country twice deeply marked by war in the 20th century. Not only did the forests come to life but streams and rivers came to life and villages began to flourish and people were enlivened. Giono's fable held great symbolic resonance for many in France, and the light from its story spread across the globe slowly but surely. This writer asked that the story never be sold but remain available for all to read freely! Many people have been inspired by this tale of great nobility to make a similar gesture, even if on a small scale.... a garden plot or abandoned land.

The title of this post also comes from Ben Okri:
                'Its easy to forget how mysterious and mighty stories are. They do their work in silence, invisibly. They work with all the internal materials of the mind and self. They become part of you while changing you. Beware the stories you read or tell: subtly at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.'
And a last word form Okri:
                'Stories are one of the highest and most invisible forms of human creativity'