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reasonsforhope · 10 months ago

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"In response to last year’s record-breaking heat due to El Niño and impacts from climate change, Indigenous Zenù farmers in Colombia are trying to revive the cultivation of traditional climate-resilient seeds and agroecology systems.

One traditional farming system combines farming with fishing: locals fish during the rainy season when water levels are high, and farm during the dry season on the fertile soils left by the receding water.

Locals and ecologists say conflicts over land with surrounding plantation owners, cattle ranchers and mines are also worsening the impacts of the climate crisis.

To protect their land, the Zenù reserve, which is today surrounded by monoculture plantations, was in 2005 declared the first Colombian territory free from GMOs.

...

In the Zenù reserve, issues with the weather, climate or soil are spread by word of mouth between farmers, or on La Positiva 103.0, a community agroecology radio station. And what’s been on every farmer’s mind is last year’s record-breaking heat and droughts. Both of these were charged by the twin impacts of climate change and a newly developing El Niño, a naturally occurring warmer period that last occurred here in 2016, say climate scientists.

Experts from Colombia’s Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies say the impacts of El Niño will be felt in Colombia until April 2024, adding to farmers’ concerns. Other scientists forecast June to August may be even hotter than 2023, and the next five years could be the hottest on record. On Jan. 24, President Gustavo Petro said he will declare wildfires a natural disaster, following an increase in forest fires that scientists attribute to the effects of El Niño.

In the face of these changes, Zenù farmers are trying to revive traditional agricultural practices like ancestral seed conservation and a unique agroecology system.

Pictured: Remberto Gil’s house is surrounded by an agroforestry system where turkeys and other animals graze under fruit trees such as maracuyá (Passiflora edulis), papaya (Carica papaya) and banana (Musa acuminata colla). Medicinal herbs like toronjil (Melissa officinalis) and tres bolas (Leonotis nepetifolia), and bushes like ají (Capsicum baccatum), yam and frijol diablito (beans) are part of the undergrowth. Image by Monica Pelliccia for Mongabay.

“Climate change is scary due to the possibility of food scarcity,” says Rodrigo Hernandez, a local authority with the Santa Isabel community. “Our ancestral seeds offer a solution as more resistant to climate change.”

Based on their experience, farmers say their ancestral seed varieties are more resistant to high temperatures compared to the imported varieties and cultivars they currently use. These ancestral varieties have adapted to the region’s ecosystem and require less water, they tell Mongabay. According to a report by local organization Grupo Semillas and development foundation SWISSAID, indigenous corn varieties like blaquito are more resistant to the heat, cariaco tolerates drought easily, and negrito is very resistant to high temperatures.

The Zenù diet still incorporates the traditional diversity of seeds, plant varieties and animals they consume, though they too are threatened by climate change: from fish recipes made from bocachico (Prochilodus magdalenae), and reptiles like the babilla or spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus), to different corn varieties to prepare arepas (cornmeal cakes), liquor, cheeses and soups.

“The most important challenge we have now is to save ancient species and involve new generations in ancestral practice,” says Sonia Rocha Marquez, a professor of social sciences at Sinù University in the city of Montería.

...[Despite] land scarcity, Negrete says communities are developing important projects to protect their traditional food systems. Farmers and seed custodians, like Gil, are working with the Association of Organic Agriculture and Livestock Producers (ASPROAL) and their Communitarian Seed House (Casa Comunitaria de Semillas Criollas y Nativas)...

Pictured: Remberto Gil is a seed guardian and farmer who works at the Communitarian Seed House, where the ASPROL association stores 32 seeds of rare or almost extinct species. Image by Monica Pelliccia for Mongabay.

Located near Gil’s house, the seed bank hosts a rainbow of 12 corn varieties, from glistening black to blue to light pink to purple and even white. There are also jars of seeds for local varieties of beans, eggplants, pumpkins and aromatic herbs, some stored in refrigerators. All are ancient varieties shared between local families.

Outside the seed bank is a terrace where chickens and turkeys graze under an agroforestry system for farmers to emulate: local varieties of passion fruit, papaya and banana trees grow above bushes of ají peppers and beans. Traditional medicinal herbs like toronjil or lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) form part of the undergrowth.

Today, 25 families are involved in sharing, storing and commercializing the seeds of 32 rare or almost-extinct varieties.

“When I was a kid, my father brought me to the farm to participate in recovering the land,” says Nilvadys Arrieta, 56, a farmer member of ASPROAL. “Now, I still act with the same collective thinking that moves what we are doing.”

“Working together helps us to save, share more seeds, and sell at fair price [while] avoiding intermediaries and increasing families’ incomes,” Gil says. “Last year, we sold 8 million seeds to organic restaurants in Bogotà and Medellín.”

So far, the 80% of the farmers families living in the Zenù reserve participate in both the agroecology and seed revival projects, he adds."

-via Mongabay, February 6, 2024

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rizardofether · 2 years ago

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Something like "canon lore" won't get in the way of my creative process, so I've got a lot of those. It's long and has some spoilers up to EoD at the end, so I'll leave it under a read more.

I have mists-creatures taking the forms of asura

Rezhi Zether:

Demil Ruh:

Simulacrum (or Sim for short):

Pokki:

Malum:

Then we got a character that was once an asura and a demon who got fused together in a mists portal accident and are now a mix of the two, Apollyon Reed:

Then I've got chimerasuras, since that got me inspired a lot.

CHK ZPPR (or Zap):

Rithoi:

Lokki (lineart & shading by a friend, colouring by me):

Rouk:

I've got one monstervari, just by appearance, there is no canon lore about sylvari that just look weird without being mordrem, Emil:

I even made my own sylvari subspecies that was based on asura instead of being based on humans, plantsura, I made a group of siblings of them. From left to right: Reita Dewinteri, Nico Strelitz, Crue Amaranth, Angel Novi Aster. Art by sheocheese on here.

I also have straight up a mists creature without any disguise. Unravel The Night is running an orphanage in Ascalon. Uses the male charr model ingame. (Art by Rairikkuu on here)

I have a couple undead asura that are not Zhaitan's or Awakened, but like a third unfactioned kind.

Necromaton Idd, a project by a mad scientist asura:

Znobis, a vengeful ghost:

I have a living suit of armor, actually the spirit of a dead human who has lost their memories, goes by Vespertine, or Vesper for short:

Then I left my most important one last. Primorsura. Or Primm. Or Prim. Started out as a gag character and then proceeded to become actual lore to now they're dating my commander. I am incapable of making joke only characters. I actually created them before they even revleaded Primordus in GW2 so I made them based on GW1 model Primordus. (Which is also their original dragon appearance) Here's where EoD spoilers come in.

Prim is Primordus from an alternate universe. There the elder dragons' personalities, secondary domains and roles were switched, just the primary elemental domains staying the same. Taking the role of Jormag but also not being evil/corrupted, similarly to how Soo-Won was until the end. They were working with the mortal races to deal with the other Elder Dragons.

One day, a mists anomaly portal appeared, and as the people of Tyria began to investigate it, and Prim arrived at the scene, the portal suddenly grew and sucked in everyone around it, including Prim. They awaken in our Tyria, in the form of an asura. Either because of dimensional travel or perhaps because the investigators that were sucked in alongside them were mostly asura, there is no way to know for sure.

As they arrive at the beginning of personal story timeline, they learn of this Tyria and decide to keep their identity a secret, Elder Dragons are all evil here after all. They decide to join the fight against them here aswell though, their desire to keep Tyria safe continuing. They join the Order of Whispers and then once the Pact is formed, they meed my commander, Rhixak. The two develop feelings for each other eventually begin dating.

During the confrontation with Jormag, they recognize Prim's energy as that of Primordus, revealing their identity. After an explanation and some time, their bonds become mended once again though.

SHARE YOUR LORE-BREAKING GW2 CHARACTERS

We haven't done one of these in a while, and I miss em! Please, jump on here with a reblog and tell me all about your characters that break canon lore! Everyone, as usual, will get a response. Add pictures, ramble for paragraphs and paragraphs! Come play in this space with me and show off your cool-ass characters that stretch the limits of gw2's lore!

#gw2 #guild wars 2 #guildwars2 #asura #sylvari #i have more along these lines but there's so many i hope this isn't too much #some are mists implied asura but left vague so canon-adjacent #my commander rhixak has some non-canon stuff going on too though #getting a mordrem seed embedded in his arm that slowly started to take over until mordremoth was defeated #getting affected by the bloodstone and getting bloodstone eyes #but not going mad #though getting couple issues with it like some pain and stuff #i also have like a sentient elemental do those exist or are they non-sentient idk #if canon doesn't fully deny it anything can be canon haha #the mists is a convenient explanation for any lore-breaking #rezhi zether #demil ruh #simulacrum #pokki #malum #apollyon reed #chk zppr #rithoi #lokki #rouk #emil leonotis #reita dewinteri #nico strelitz #crue amaranth #angel novi aster

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faebaex · 1 year ago

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Tangled in Wonderland - Leonotis Leonurus

author note: second poll's winner! also a plant pun for the title, just because (￣▽￣) i feel like Jade would be proud. speaking of, he has a teeny tiny cameo in this fic, simply bc he just fit the situation so well. so far, its been a housewarden clean sweep on the polls, with Azul winning the Octavinelle poll! new poll is up right now, a bonus one this time! who will be the comeback king? go vote if you haven't already! enjoy~

characters: Leona Kingscholar x GN!Reader

The library was your turf.

By this point, you were on a first name basis with all of the library ghosts, and you had a fairly good working knowledge of every section of the library, with Ace and Deuce often seeking you out at your usual table to ask you if you had any idea where a certain book would be. Of course, more often than not that meant that they would then sit at your table and you wouldn’t really get any meaningful research done, not with all their squabbling and general freshman catastrophic energy. When Grim tagged along, it was even worse, but at least you could keep an eye on him and make sure he was actually doing the assignments he was supposed to.

Despite all the time you had been spending at the library, you were still no closer to figuring out how to get home. Crowley was nowhere to be found, taking avoiding you to an entirely new level. The books and reading list that Riddle had provided you, however, had been very insightful. His recommendations were much easier to read than the previous tomes you had been torturing yourself with, and you were starting to see connections between theories, it becoming easier for you to source further reading without having to consult Riddle first. So yes, the library was your turf.

The botanical garden, however, was not. And you were well aware of who it belonged to.

Leona Kingscholar was one of the students at the top of your list to avoid. And considering his personality, the feeling was likely mutual. So you made a conscious effort to avoid places where you could run into him, not wanting to tempt the already volatile nature of fate to thrust you into his trajectory. You were even doing well avoiding conflict with the Savanaclaw students, especially considering they were always looking for a fight and the school’s only magicless student was definitely high on their lists to torment. But unfortunately for you, you couldn’t always avoid some of Leona’s favourite haunts, because what Crewel wants, Crewel gets.

You grumbled to yourself as you picked through the botanical gardens, a basket on one arm and a list in the other. Crewel had kindly brought it to your attention with a lash of his pointer that good ol’ Grim had been using ingredients from the potionology inventory for his lab work and assignments instead of collecting his own before class, as student handbook guidelines demand. With Grim nowhere to be seen and you being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Crewel had handed you an extensive list of every ingredient that Grim had used since the two of you became a joint student, and ordered you to the botanical garden to retrieve every single one of them, or face the consequences. And with Crewel swinging that pointer around, you didn’t wait around to find out what those consequences would be.

Being so unfamiliar with the botanical gardens made this job harder, and the sheer size of the list had you running around in circles, picking one ingredient only to realise that you needed something similar that was back the way you had just came. It was incredibly frustrating, and you found yourself huffing under your breath as you traipsed around the botanical garden. To make matters worse, you had to keep yourself alert, lest there be a certain lion’s tail draped carelessly on the pavestone.

You were well aware that in the game, the poor main character had accidentally stepped on a certain stroppy lion’s tail, and he had retaliated by threatening to knock their teeth out. You’d rather not find yourself in the same situation. You’d briefly considered moving his tail out of the way with a stick or something, but decided that Leona was hardly worth the effort and would likely get offended at you poking at him either way, so instead you had to dutifully watch your feet as you continued on with your laborious task.

You had been hunting for ingredients for about an hour and a half by now, and clubs were starting to wrap up their activities and head back to their dorms. You, however, still had half of your list to go, so there was no such reprieve waiting for you. You wondered if you would be able to drop the basket back to the potionology lab with your half-completed list and promise Crewel that you’d finish the job tomorrow. Surely he wasn’t willing to wait around for you to find all these ingredients? If there was any professor at Night Raven College who you expected to have evening plans, it would be Crewel.

As you pondered your next course of action, you caught a flash of teal out of the corner of your eye. Walking towards you down the pathway was Jade Leech, and you fought the urge to do something stupid like show weakness by tensing or throwing yourself into the bushes. With his usual contrived smile affixed to his face, Jade eyed you in a way that really did make you feel like a shrimp, suddenly giving you a whole new understanding as to why his twin had dubbed the main character with such a pet name. Him being here was an oversight on your part, clearly you had thought that Leona was the botanical garden’s biggest threat, not even factoring in that Jade would use this place to fawn over his mushrooms. Thankfully he didn’t stop, passing you with an elegant stride that you could only appreciate, considering he had only been on legs for two years.

“Good day, prefect. Lovely weather we are having.” Jade greeted as he passed you, with you only responding with a small, tight-lipped smile back. No sooner had his footsteps faded away did the heavens decide to open up, a surprised cry erupting from your lips as you quickly found yourself becoming drenched, the sprinklers dousing the entire area and you in water. That could not have been a coincidence.

The sprinklers stopped as quickly as they had started, but by that point the damage had already been done, your clothes and hair dripping. The list in your hand was sodden, the ink running and quickly making the contents illegible. You growled in frustration, throwing the soggy list to the floor with a wet thump as you tried to squeeze out your clothes in vain. You were so busy trying to sort yourself out, to scrap back any shred of dignity you could that you almost missed the rustling of bushes next to you. Even if you had, there was no way you’d miss the soaking wet beastman emerging from the foliage, ears flat to his head and tail whipping behind him aggressively.

And he was glaring straight at you. Great.

“You got some nerve, herbivore. You got a death wish?” Leona snarled at you and you found yourself prickling up. “This wasn’t me!” You argued, gesturing to your own dripping form before glaring right back at him, “I might be magicless, but that doesn’t make me stupid! If I was going to set the sprinklers off, I’d make sure I wouldn’t get caught in it.” You huffed, once again trying to squeeze the excess water out of your clothes. Your words seemed to pique some interest in Leona, as he was suddenly all up in your space and sniffing you.

“Hm, you’re right. No magic at all, just wet herbivore.” Leona remarked, scrunching his nose up as he stepped back, as if the smell offended him. “Do you mind? You smell like wet cat.” You said flatly with an unimpressed expression, throwing your basket back over your arm with perhaps a little more force than necessary. You swear you could see an amused glint in Leona’s eye as he stooped down, picking up the soggy list that you’d thrown to the ground just moments earlier. “What’s this?” He enquired, holding the list away from him between his thumb and forefinger as if it was toxic, yet still holding it out of your reach when you tried to swipe it back.

“That is mine.” You said with exasperation, your dignity already running down the drain without Leona making you jump to get your list back, “whatever, its ruined anyway. Have it.” You huffed, resigned to having to go back to Crewel with your metaphorical tail between your legs and plead for a new list. Leona eyed you up for a moment before he stepped towards you again, tugging at the basket on your arm to get a look at the contents before dumping the ruined list into the basket.

“C’mon, prefect,” Leona droned over his shoulder as he started walking up the pathway, “I’ll get you some ingredients. First year ingredients are simple.” He scoffed as he navigated the garden like a seasoned pro, his gait lazy and leaving you no choice but to trail after him with a suspicious expression on your face.

“You’re… Helping me?” You questioned, the corner of your lips downturning warily. The Leona you knew was never helpful, only interested if he had something to gain, usually foisting off any inconveniences to Ruggie. “What’s in it for you?” You asked carefully, watching as he picked some stems from a bush and lob them into your basket, making you sigh as you attempted to tidy up his shoddy packing. Leona’s smile was all fangs as he caught your eyes before continuing along the path, “I’m always in need of another gopher. Having you owe me could come in handy, Ruggie has been nagging me lately and you could be just what I need... Plus, the quicker you’re out of the botanical garden, the more peaceful sleep I’d get without having to listen to your huffing and puffing.”

Ah.

Well, you suppose the original main character was truly onto something when they’d stayed up all night screaming outside Leona’s room in chapter three.

Leona had made short work of finding ingredients, and soon your basket was filled to the brim. “Those are all the common ingredients in first year potions. Any missing ingredients are on you.” Leona drawled as you both walked together towards the exit of the botanical garden, his hands behind his head as he yawned leisurely, “you owe me, prefect.”

“How do you even know what ingredients to look for?” You asked, your curiosity getting the best of you as you both left the garden, about to split off on your own paths as you planned to deliver the basket of ingredients to Crewel, whilst you assumed Leona would head back to his dorm. Leona simply kept walking, and you assumed he’d grown tired of you. But then he paused, looking over his shoulder at you with a smirk that you’d dare to describe as cheeky.

“Because I had to search out ingredients for Crewel in my first year, too.”

Huh. Perhaps Leona wasn’t that bad after all, you thought to yourself as you watched Leona’s retreating back, before setting off yourself to hand the ingredients in to Crewel, praying for fate to grant you some mercy for a change.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #leona kingscholar #twst leona #leona kingscholar x reader #leona kingscholar x y/n

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gynandromorph · 5 months ago

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i phoned in a lot of this one, but... my hand hurts from thumbnailing, i just wanted it done. it's been half-done for a couple weeks now.

this is another NofNA style emulation comic, taking place 1 or 2 months after this one. I imagine that Legend has badgered PS relentlessly with study material, including jumpscaring her with flashcards, like in this strip, so it has sunk in pretty quickly. Legend is not known for her chill.

there was a lot of stuff that i could have included, but i wanted to keep this one short and to-the-point. it is a direct parallel to the facture Legend uses later in the comic with Machinations. i wanted to make the initial thesis's implicit relationship with memory more obvious. it spends most of the story trundling down a path about fiction, but it doesn't actually become fully realized until Legend reworks it to focus on memory specifically, with fiction as a motif nestled around the core, instead of being the core. more importantly, it was always at least a little bit about manipulating memory. Legend's mantle and diamond rings in the more "present day" comics were created with her only successfully telenoetic application of the style's supreme facture. this instance of telenoesis is supposed to be brought up a couple of times as evidence that there is *something in the thesis that is direly correct*. it would not have achieved telenoesis if there weren't something reflecting reality in its rhetoric. Legend just cannot figure out what is and is not the "real" parts of the thesis causing this effect. allusion, tangentially, always functions as a telenoesis, because it is always invoking memory by its very nature. it's not a wonder that Legend sees it as her most powerful facture.

she absolutely does not have the words for various forms of unconscious memory such as implicit memory. it would be like expecting an ancient greek scribe-in-training to know modern psychology intuitively. even up until the present day comic with Dr. Rations, Legend did not even know that memories could be inaccurate. it was interesting to try to figure out how she might conceptualize the fact that there are things your mind clearly acquires as memory, without being able to actually remember it consciously. i imagine that it's very instinctual to not doubt your memories; most people will consider reality itself fake before doubting their own memories or the beliefs built on top of them. relatedly, i figured PS, who has even less education than Legend, probably doesn't even have a concept of thoughts she doesn't think. it's a strange, inherently unknowable aspect of cognition.

the flower PS starts eating is a lion's tail flower (leonotis leonurus). lemurs are the largest pollinators on earth, and they consume the nectar of flowers regularly as part of their diet -- they also often consume most of the entire ass flower. the other plants i really did not bother to look into... it takes a lot of time, even with the extremely convenient inaturalist sources.

#nofna shitposting #partaking in the act

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