Le journal de l'IRD
n° 47 November-December 2008
Translator: Nicholas Flay
ew Caledonia has a continuous
1600 km stretch of barrier reef,
including 7284 km2 of coral masses and
35000 km2 of reef and lagoon: the world’s
longest uninterrupted barrier reef.
What is more, the island is a biodiversity
hotspot, for both its terrestrial and marine
ecosystems! Enhancing knowledge of
these habitats and the way they function
contributes to improved environmental
management. A credo on which research
at IRD’s Noumea centre is based. Studies on
New Caledonian coral reefs have contributed this year to the inscription of part
of the country’s lagoons and reefs on
Unesco’s World Heritage List.
The research the Institute conducts in this
area of the world has a very wide range.
And for a good reason, as it concerns as
much aspects of participatory management of marine protection areas as the
geological history of the coral-reef building and use of the corals and foraminifera
as geological evidence of past climates,
What are the foundation’s
ambitions and how does it
replace the previously existing
structures in the same field?
It is heir to the Bureau des
ressources génétiques (BRG) and
the Institut français de la biodiversité (IFB), two scientific interest
groups that gathered together the
same research institutions.
Its objective is to combine and use
the synergies between the two scientific specialities to strengthen
them strategically and scientifically.
The foundation will organize its
action around four major lines of
action: the first is an appraisal of
the potential of French research in
biodiversity.
It is already working towards this
to establish a database of national
scientific resources in this field.
The aim is to use them to alongside equivalent European data.
The second line of action entails
support for the coordination of
national actors of research, both
between each other, and with
their European and international
counterparts.
The third focuses on the usage of
the results of research and scientific expertise, by economic players,
public authorities and administrators.
The Strategic Planning Committee, a place for dialogue with
stakeholders, can effectively contribute to knowledge diffusion.
Finally, the fourth line of action
will involve the establishment of
partnerships with organizations
from France and abroad, with
enterprises, in research not only
on biodiversity, but also on conservation and genetic resources management.
p. 12 IRD World
p.1 News
Ensuring continuation of
pearl culture in French
Polynesia
Another step towards
domestication of
the Amazonian giant fish
p. 4 Partners
p. 5 Partners
The agdals
of the Moroccan Atlas
Down with unwanted
catches!
T
© IRD/M. Bouvy
© IFAD/Schaff
n 2003, the “low-intensity conflict” which drove the Mbororo
from the Central African Republic has
finally been taken into account by the
High Commission on Refugees. The
HCR took its first records in 2006. At
the end of 2008, there were some
70000 refugees between Touboro and Bertoua, and as many more in Cameroon. It would
be appropriate to add 25000 refugees in Chad between Gore and Timbiri.
The Cameroon HCR lets the Mbororo divide themselves
between Fulbe villages (the village Peuls) or Gbaya (the
dominant ethnic group), over about 60 sites. They share
both the ability to deal with the environment and the
language of this community, and their return
“to normal” should be favoured. These dispersed refugees, unlike others, will not offer
any strong images for the media.
T
T
© IRD/P. Blanchon
he principle of the agdal is a simple
one. It consists of the temporary setting aside of protected “resource areas”
by traditional institutions operating at different levels of organization (along village, tribal fraction or other lines). In the
High Atlas, the agdal system is a way of
conserving a varied range of natural or
semi-natural resources (for agriculture,
pasture or as forest) or even human-built
features (such as community developments or sacred sites). The “Agdal”
research programme (2003-2006), supported by the IRD and the Institut Français
de la Biodiversité, has compiled a report
summarizing the knowledge on this local
management strategy, as part of a
scheme combining research in social science, agriculture and ecology.
ishing also has its “collateral victims”:
non-targeted animals caught in the
nets, taken as unwanted catches. Such
organisms make up between 15 and
40% for longline fishery catches and 5%
of those from tropical tuna purse seine
fishing.
Some of these catches can be used commercially, but others are just thrown back
overboard as discards. What solutions can
be applied to counter this phenomenon
and avoid accidental capture of protected
or highly vulnerable species (see box,
“Sharks at risk”)?
The Made (Mitigating Adverse Ecological
impacts of open ocean fisheries) project,
coordinated by the IRD, is devising
strategies to help longline fishermen and
tropical tuna purse-seines reduce the
adverse effects of their work on ocean
ecosystems.
© IRD/B. Seret
© IRD/P. Dominguez
F
Bwaba
chameleons
and
blacksmiths
ork by an
IRD
ethnologist on the
social organization of the Bwaba
people of Burkina
Faso reveals an
extraordinary wealth of symbolic links
which, through a special relationship with
colours, unite chameleon with blacksmiths in their complementary abilities for
transformation.
p. 13 IRD World
What future
for the Mbororo ?
I
p. 3 News
W
of coastal zones”, brings in the involvement of marine protected areas.
Other examples of research undertaken,
the monitoring of fishing, whether recreational or for food, and of giant clam,
requested by the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites).
The latter measure aims to draw up an
objective state of the art report on giant
clam fishing to prepare if necessary a
plan to guarantee the continuing survival
of this resource.
Finally, to watch over present and future
environmental issues, the IRD has proposed to its partners to the idea of forming a wide-ranging South Pacific Environment and Biodiversity Observatory.
he French Polynesian Pearl Culture
Service has launched the project
“Professionnalisation et pérennisation de
la perliculture” (‘Professional Improvement and Sustainability of Pearl Culture’),
whose prime objective is to improve the
quality of pearls and guarantee better
profitability of pearl farms. As much as
improvement of technical and economic
performances of pearl farmers and the
professionalism of the sector are crucial,
establishing optimal culture conditions to
improve the quality of pearls produced is
equally as important. The 3-year research
programme “Étude approfondie des composantes hydroclimatiques et biologiques
qui caractérisent l'environnement de
l'huître perlière Pinctada margaritifera”,
led by the IRD’s Coreus and Cyroco units,
will help define the tools necessary for
rational sustainable use of pearl culture
lagoons by optimizing production capacity
and quality.
p. 2 News
Climate influence
on epidemics in the Sahel
M
eningitis kills thousands of people
every year in the Sahelian belt, at
the time when winter winds like the
Harmattan blow. A joint team of IRD and
Université Paris VII researchers has now
made the first demonstration of a longterm relationship between the intensity of
winter weather and the extent of the epidemic. A link was revealed when climatic
variables were combined with epidemiological data collected from Niger and
Burkina Faso, two of the countries most
affected by the disease, since the end of
the 1960s.
he Amazon and its tributaries harbour nearly one-tenth of the world’s
biodiversity of freshwater fish.
Among the 2500 species recorded,
Arapaima gigas is one of the most
emblematic.
In Brazil it is better known as the pirarucu, in Peru as the paiche, and is one of
the largest species of freshwater fish.
Some specimens can reach 4 m in length
with a weight of 200 kg.
This graceful predator has become a victim of over-fishing, however, and figures
on the IUCN Red List of Threatened
Species.
© IRD/Jésus Nuñez
N
soon used as bases for monitoring fisheries at regional and national scale, in the
oceanic island groups and states.
Beyond recording and mapping work, IRD
scientists are also giving attention to the
management of the resources drawn
upon, in other words the marine species
targeted by fishing.
The Cogeron project thus deals with comanagement of the reefs and lagoons
having high heritage value for New
Caledonia.
The objective of this project is to prepare
and follow up a concerted action on two
sites between scientists, resource managers and users.
This multidisciplinary approach, hinged
on the theme “Integrated management
© IRD/P. Laboute
A biodiversity
hotspot
© IRD/P. Dumas
© DR
Bernard Delay
chairs the
Fondation
pour la
recherche sur
la biodiversité,
an institution
set up in 2008
with the participation of eight
scientific organizations
including the IRD.
their
morphology, the
marine biodiversity they
harbour, reef
communities
and their uses
or marine natural bioactive
substances.
In a similar
way to tropical rainforests,
coral reef ecosystems hold a rich variety
of species.
About 10000 species have been recorded
to date, including 1700 fish, 2000 molluscs and 320 corals. However, this
number probably represents only a tiny
proportion of all the different organisms,
considering the variety of biotopes that
have not yet been studied, and the
cryptic groups, parasites and microorganisms.
Mapping has now become an essential
tool if further advances are to be made in
the investigation of these reefs.
The IRD has indeed published several
atlases using satellite images which were
© IRD/C. Geoffray
p. 7-10 Special feature
New Caledonia
p. 1 Interview
© IRD/C. Geoffray
Abstracts for the international issue
With the aim of alleviating a substantial
decline of catches in the wild, captive
breeding is steadily being developed in
the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon.
Yet reproduction under aquaculture conditions remains a major difficulty for
pirarucu production, among other things
because it is almost impossible to distinguish the sex of reproductive adults.
An IRD team and its Peruvian research
partner, Instituto de Investigaciones de la
Amazonía Peruana de Loreto, has now
succeeded in using a straightforward
blood sample to sex accurately around
30 individuals.
This new, practically non-invasive method
should help improve arapaima rearing
schemes and at the same time facilitate
the study and monitoring of wild populations geared to improving conservation
strategies.
Consult the articles in full on the IRD Internet site: http://www.ird.fr
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