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Land of the birds: why Australia has the world's greatest diversity of avian life
Australia is home to one in 10 of the world’s unique bird species – and most of the world’s birds can trace their lineage to the continent
• Vote in the Australian bird of the Year
If you live in Australia, you may not realise how unique and special the birds around you are. Our continent was perhaps the most important for the evolution of modern birds, with a majority of the world’s species tracing their ancestry here.
Long ecologically adrift as an island continent, Australia benefited through the evolution of a remarkable diversity of fascinating, colourful, noisy, clever, innovative species of bird.
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Why first-past-the-post voting favours the ibis (and Donald Trump)
The system works fine when there two candidates in an election but is a poor option when there are multiple ones – and it can lead to some bad results
• Ben Raue is Guardian Australia’s resident psephologist
The results so far of the Guardian’s bird of the year poll have not been without controversy. The Australian white ibis, a bird that is disliked by many who encounter it, took an early lead and has maintained that lead for more than a week. While this seems like a strange result, it makes sense when you think about the options provided to the voters. With so many birds to choose from, the voting system used has a tendency to produce a winner who has a committed support base, even if that option also has a lot of opponents.
The vote was conducted using the first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting method – everyone gets one vote, and the candidate with the highest vote wins. This system works fine when there are just two candidates running in an election, but when you get more than two, it inevitably results in candidates winning with less than a majority of the vote. The ibis is sitting on 13.6% of the total vote, with the magpie coming second on 11.1%. The top two birds combined have received less than a quarter of the total vote.
Continue reading...German court to hear Peruvian farmer's climate case against RWE
Decision to hear Saul Luciano Lliuya’s case against the energy giant is a ‘historic breakthrough with global relevance’, campaigners say
A German court has ruled that it will hear a Peruvian farmer’s case against energy giant RWE over climate change damage in the Andes, a decision labelled by campaigners as a “historic breakthrough”.
Farmer Saul Luciano Lliuya’s case against RWE was “well-founded,” the court in the north-western city of Hamm said on Thursday.
Continue reading...Indigenous crops and smallscale farms: Ruth Oniang’o on Africa’s agricultural future
The Africa Food Prize winner talks about her work with Kenya’s smallholder farmers, and how indigenous crops can be a tool in the battle against food insecurity and climate change
When Ruth Oniang’o was working as a nutrition researcher in 1980s Kenya, she noticed an ominous change in the country’s agricultural landscape: regions that had once provided a diversity of nutritious food crops were being turned over to cash crops like sugarcane. Grown mostly for export, these crops were usurping land and soil that was intended for feeding people.
Spurred on by what she witnessed all those years ago, today Oniang’o--a professor of nutrition and a native Kenyan--leads the Rural Outreach Program, a nonprofit that champions the role of indigenous African crops and smallholder farmers in safeguarding food security. With the ROP, Oniang’o visits hundreds of farming communities in Kenya and helps them access, grow, and share seeds for indigenous crop varieties like sorghum, cassava, arrowroot, and jute mallow--foods that are not only nutritious, but also disease-resistant and climate-resilient. This year, these efforts got her recognised as the joint winner of the 2017 Africa Food Prize.
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