CABI Blogs: hand picked... and carefully sorted

Cotton harvest picture special

 

The power of the image paints a picture that speaks a thousand words and that is certainly the case with these fantastic images taken by photographer Asim Hafeez.

Asim was commissioned by CABI to document the process of harvesting cotton in Pakistan – the country’s largest industrial sector – where more than 500,000 farmers rely on the crop for their livelihoods.

CABI is helping the country’s cotton industry reduce losses of around $350m a year by training thousands of farmers and workers about better production, transport and storage practices as part of the Better Cotton Initiative.

These photographs tell the story of how cotton farmers at five districts (Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, Umer Kot, Tando Allah Yar and Matiari, of Sindh, Pakistan are learning to grow more and lose less of what they sow, thereby maintaining their livelihoods through increased profitability.

Termite workshop photo special - exploring tree-damaging termites in the tropics

CABI scientists have held a successful three-day workshop exploring how to diagnose and manage termites associated with structures and trees in the tropics.

The workshop, held at CABI’s South East Asia (SEA) office building at MARDI in Serdang, Malaysia, highlighted termites as ecologically important insects with significant roles to play as decomposers but also as pests that can cause major damage to trees and buildings.

This photo blog charts the three-day event officially opened by Dr Sivapragasam Annamalai, Regional Director of CABI SEA, and which included a welcome by CABI CEO Dr Trevor Nicholls.

"One Health and One Welfare for all" by Rebeca Garcia Pinillos

 

#HealthForAll

 

“Health for all” has been the guiding vision of the World Health Organisation (WHO) for more than seven decades, underpinning the principle that “all people should be able to realize their right to the highest possible level of health”. This of course includes both health and welfare, terms that are intrinsically connected.

 

Women Authors with an Impact - Academic Book Week 2018

2018 marks one hundred years since women were given the right to vote. The implementation of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 5, ‘Gender Equality’, which came into force in 2016 shows how far we have come in our progress towards giving women equal rights a hundred years later. What we now have to show for this call to action is nothing short of a social landmark, with more women in higher paid roles and senior positions, meaning women subsequently have more of a voice in decision-making units. On Academic Book Week 2018 we are celebrating our female authors who have set an example of how we can head in the right direction towards giving women a voice of authority.

Cutting plastic bottle use in adventure travel

Earth Day 2018 is on Sunday April 22, and the theme for this year is ending plastic pollution. One of the biggest sources of plastic waste from the general public is single-use plastic bottles, and tourists are a big source of this waste. Even those of us who rarely use disposable drinks bottles when at home often use several a day when travelling. Western tourists travelling to developing countries where they do not trust the local drinking water are regular high users, often buying single-use bottles for all the water they use. The travel trade is trying to reduce this use, and the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) committed to curbing the use of single-use plastic bottles as one of its strategic initiatives in 2018. To get a picture of the current situation among ATTA members, ATTA teamed up with Travelers Against Plastic (TAP) to create and distribute a survey to the ATTA and TAP’s database of adventure tourism businesses. The results show that despite high levels of awareness and concern, most adventure travel firms still use plastic water bottles on many of their trips. 

Earth Day 2018 - The campaign to eliminate plastic pollution

[Image credit: Pixabay - hhach]

This blog post was written by our new Content Editor - Ellen Baker, ahead of Earth Day on Sunday 22nd April.

This year the annual environmental issues awareness event ‘Earth day’ is focussing on the topic of plastic pollution; the problems generated by our high usage of single use plastics have been a campaign point for numerous environmental groups for many years but the topic of plastic pollution has recently been brought to the forefront of public discussion by the hugely popular BBC documentary Blue Planet II. Prompted by the poignant last episode of the series which featured this topic heavily, the nationwide programme narrated by Sir David Attenborough has appeared to catalyse a change in public opinion on plastic waste, what some have subsequently dubbed this the ‘Blue planet effect’.

The story of the rare book on plant diseases that returned 'home' to China after a 72 year absence

Photo: The 1942 text by Professor Wang Ming-Chih, returned to China after more than 70 years

Lesley Ragab thought she knew CABI’s stock of more than 24,000 books and 2,000 journals like the back of her hand after serving as librarian at the organisation’s Egham, UK, office for over 20 years. That was until she stumbled upon a rare book of plant diseases in Honan (Henan in modern Chinese Pinyin) Province, China, which had been donated to CABI’s Library more than 70 years ago.

Lesley, who keeps a close watch on a range of material – covering subjects as broad as mycology, entomology, nematology, microbiology and crop protection (to name but a few) – could hardly believe her eyes when the non-descript book with Chinese writing on the cover presented itself while answering a staff enquiry.

How to Control Urban Pests: Q&A with Entomologist Dr. Partho Dhang

Quick and easy solutions for treating pests with conventional sprays can harm the environment and contaminate surrounding areas, making them unsafe and unfit for solving urban pest problems. We asked CABI author and entomologist, Dr Partho Dhang, for some practical advice on treating these common pests that will be helpful for those whose living spaces are infested by cockroaches, bed bugs, rodents, ticks, fleas and other well-known urban pests. His new guide offers affordable instruction and recommendation on what can be done to get rid of them, without creating a health hazard in the process.

 

Public breeding grounds for Culex. (Courtesy of Biosav.)

 

Chocolate SDGs unwrapped

 

“The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), otherwise known as the Global Goals, are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity.”¹

Should we prioritise chocolate in this universal call to action?

Threats to the cocoa industry including low productivity, marketing challenges, pests and disease, environmental concerns and access to education, pests and disease, environmental concerns and educational access, are predicted to cause a global supply shortage of 1 million tonnes by 2020.

Without understanding something of the lives and livelihoods producing this dietary indulgence you’d consider this issue a first world problem - so what? I’ll just have to skip that mid-afternoon choccy pick-me-up. No big deal.

Universal health coverage: everyone, everywhere…what about cancer?

 

I’ve written about universal health coverage (UHC) before in the context of what’s covered under UHC in one country is not the same as another [Universal health coverage gains momentum in 2016] although there are agreed basics, the essential health services to deliver “health for all”.  The World Health Organization is focusing its efforts on supporting countries moving to UHC, and keeping the pressure on by running high profile events throughout 2018 on UHC beginning with  World Health Day, April 7^th.