n° 81 - November-December-January
Le journal de l'IRD
Translations: Technicis
p. 3 News
p. 11 Upgrading
Plaques: the other
amazing termite creation
Innovation for reforestation
The African reservoir!
nriching certain foodstuffs can
mean an improved nutritional
intake for people in many different
countries. However a new trial in
Cambodia has found that fortified
rice can also increase the risk of
intestinal parasites in children.
A
© Projet Griba
E
p. 2 News
Amazon: half of all tree
species under threat
frica holds more water than we
thought! As part of the GRIBA
programme, hydrogeologists from the
IRD and their African partners have for
the first time managed to quantify the
amount of water contained in ancient
rocks known as “basement rock”
which make up nearly 40% of the
African continent by surface. They have
calculated that certain parts of Benin,
Burkina Faso and Uganda contain enough
water to meet the domestic requirements
of the entire local populations! However, currently nearly one in every two wells
is unproductive. Drilling these failed wells is costly and makes it impossible to
construct sufficient installations to meet the water demand in full. The failure rate
is due to the geology of the basement rock which makes searching for water a
complex task.
p. 11 Upgrading
Sea life under surveillance
W
© IRD – V. Jamonneau
© IRD / L. Emperaire
© Biotope
p. 5 Partners
The challenge of neglected diseases
E
ver since they were invited to the G7 in June, neglected tropical diseases have
finally caught the attention, subject to the necessary funding, of politicians
and institutions. French researchers are therefore working with NGOs and private
partners to create a network based around these NTDs under the name Aviesan,
due for launch next April. This will hopefully be sufficient to raise the appeal of
the Neglected Disease label attributed by the WHO to 17 diseases, including some
“unlabelled” ones such as leptospirosis and others, for the benefit of the most
affected populations.
African children on the
move
W
hether to learn or to travel,
pursue a dream or escape
adversity, millions of young Africans
leave their home, region or country
every year. This phenomenon is
due in part to the itinerant culture
inherent to Sub-Saharan Africa.
However, it is being accelerated and even shaped by globalisation, urbanisation,
a quest for new knowledge and even financial necessity. This migration has been
in the news most recently for the crises suffered by young migrants en route to
Europe, disappearances at sea or in the desert, fatal hypothermia in the luggage
hold of aircraft and human trafficking. However, these peripheral events can mask
the reality of this form of movement, which is remarkable for its size and the fact
that the large majority takes place within the African continent itself. It is this
scope and its specific nature that have caught the attention of researchers. The
practice of fostering, whereby parents send their children to the care of other
relations or friends, is challenging the dominant paradigm of parenthood. This
multi-parenting model, which affects up to one third of households or children
in certain Sub-Saharan regions, is in fact competing with the insistence placed
up to now by childcare institutions on the essential nature of the nuclear family
centred around the biological parents. Child migration is also questioning the
various limits placed on what constitutes “childhood”. Depending on the region,
the circumstances and the law, young migrants are considered either as children
that need protecting, or adults that need controlling. Finally, empirical data show
that child migration is not always the decision of the adult. Scientists now need to
examine the importance for the fate of these young boys and girls of whether they
chose to move or whether the decision was taken by someone else.
p. 2 News
© S. Gourlet-Fleury / Cirad
Barking up the right tree!
O
p. 9 and 10 Research
Mobile revolution in the South
I
© Africa Green Media
f the 250 million hectares of
primary forest in Central Africa,
only a tiny fraction of the trees
makes any significant contribution
to carbon storage! This is the
conclusion of a team of ecologists
from the IRD and their partners. The
researchers conducted a vast study
of sections of primary forest in the
Gabon, Cameroon, Central African
Republic and Democratic Republic
of the Congo. Within each zone,
the diameter of every tree trunk was
measured. This information can be
used to estimate a tree’s air biomass
and thus the size of its carbon stores.
Wiomsa Conference
N
ow is the time for scientific
action to combat climate
change in the Indian Ocean. This
geographical area, comprising the
Eastern coastline of Africa and
a number of island states and
regions, is in fact experiencing
the full brunt of global change.
The issue is of particular concern,
since a large portion of the local
population depends directly on
the marine ecosystem for their
daily subsistence. The Wiomsa Association, which brings together marine science
specialists from the region, recently held an international conference dedicated
to this issue.
© C. Lepage / Handicap International
p. 7 and 8 Research
p. 12 Planet
n 2015, one in every two people on
the planet had a mobile phone. Whilst
ownership is still unevenly distributed (79%
of Europeans, 52% of South Americans and
39% of Africans), the mobile has become
an essential tool for us all. Having already
revolutionised the banking system in Africa,
mobile telephones are now transforming
public health, the environment, transport
and even farming.
p. 13 Planet
COP21:
Public
agreement and
awareness
© A. Bouissou-MEDDE/SG COP21
T
he “Red List” now contains 8,700
Amazon tree species. In other
words, these trees are threatened
with extinction according to the
criteria used by the International
Union for Conservation of Nature
(IUCN), reveals a new study. There are
too few of them to survive the rate of
deforestation, based on the method
used by this internationally renowned
institution for determining a species’
conservation status.
hat with unpredictable weather and
turbulent ocean currents,
encounters between biologists and some marine animals often depend on pure
luck! The Siméo buoy is
now being used to maximise these encounters...with
cameras, microphones and
screens to say the very
least. This floating device,
the fruit of a collaboration between the IRD, IFREMER, NKE Instrumentation and Biotope, contains a multitude of innovations. It films cetaceans such as fish and marine birds, records their sounds, measures the weather and oceanic conditions...
all at the same time!
© Seaquest-N. Chapman
p. 4 Partners
Food fortification proves
to be a double-edged
sword
© IRD / P. Jouquet
© Susan Glavich
p. 1 News
Planting
trees
to
create carbon stores
for
the
planet....
This
unanimously
supported idea makes
particularly good sense
in Madagascar, where
over 80% of the primary
forest has disappeared.
However, turning the
idea into reality is still a
challenge. Once planted
out into the soil, one of
every two trees grown
in a nursery dies. For
the NGO “Graine de Vie” (Seed of Life), whose aim is to reforest the island, this
“transplantation crisis” is a real obstacle. It has begun using a technology known
as “nurse plants”, developed to improve the quality of nursery plants, the patent
for which is jointly owned by the IRD.
D
uring
Cop21,
scientists from the
IRD
made their own
contribution to the Lima
Paris Action Agenda,
endeavouring to help
raise public awareness of
climate change.
p. 15 Planet
COP12:
Halting land degradation
A
f
t
e
r
biodiversity
and
climate
change,
the
United
Nations
Convention
to
Combat
Desertification
is
the
third
convention
to
come out of the
Rio Earth Summit.
During the most
recent Conference
of the Parties, held
last October in
Ankara, the states
reached an agreement on the principle of land degradation neutrality.
Consult the articles in full on the IRD Internet site: http://www.ird.fr
© UNCCD – COP 12
M
ore discrete than large termite
mounds, these plaques are
nonetheless remarkable surface
constructions. Built to protect
their food, these structures show
that termites do not modify their
environment at random.
© Graine de vie
Abstracts for the international issue