Your selection in the media library
347 - A new history of coffee
April 2010
Coffee now represents the primary source of wealth of many tropical countries. Only two species are cultivated, which produce the renowned Arabica and Robusta. However, a total of nearly 120 wild Coffea species exist which, starting from their origin in Lower Guinea, colonized the whole of Equatorial Africa and the Madagascar region in 400 000 years. That has been found by a recent study by IRD researchers and their Brazilian partner 1, using DNA sequencing of 26 species. Up to now, owing to the presence of coffee bushes in Africa, Madagascar and India, botanists thought that they originated from the Horn of Africa, before the Gondwana supercontinent broke up, more than 100 million years B. P. These investigations prompt a reorientation of research onto the coffee genome, with a view to improving this plant so highly important in agronomic and socio-economic terms.
The tidal cycle could amplify global-warming related sea-level rises
April 2008
N°43 - January-February-March 2008
March 2008
Kyoto protocol : Satellite land-use snapshot
To fulfil the country’s engagements made under the Kyoto Protocol, in 2007 France had to provide national land use statistics, with particular focus on forest cover. French Guiana is of prime significance in this respect, with its 8 million hectares of forest. The short operating time available precluded a complete ground-level survey, therefore the only feasible operational solution was to use satellite imagery. The land use mosaic produced by IRD’s Space unit gave the first recorded coverage of the whole surface of Guiana, showing the forest and the areas cleared for agriculture or goldpanning. The resulting map and the methodology applied by the unit “Espace et l’Inventaire forestier national” were presented at the conference of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) held in December 2007 in Bali (Indonesia).
Watching over the Amazon forest by remote sensing
February 2003
