Tea Time with Amazigh People

Guest post by University of Toronto-Scarborough MEnvSc Candidate Erin Jankovich

 “How do they survive?” This is the question I kept asking myself over and over as I sat sipping my mint tea on the clay floor of an Amazigh cave in the Moroccan mountains. Their faces, hands, tea-kettle and even my cup were layered with dirt and soot. Outside, prevailing winds dusted the lonely peaks of the High Atlas with orange silt. I never expected to stumble across an indigenous settlement when I set out on my hike that day, let alone be invited for tea. This was by no means a fancy tea party, but it certainly was a memorable one.

Women plucked leaves from dry aromatic plants and a man filled a kettle for more tea. A toddler sat beside me and gestured to trade his clay ball for my Nikon. I felt like a fly on the wall in a National Geographic documentary.

I was on to my third cup of tea when a young man broke the silence. “Hello, do you speak English”, I heard from behind me. Dressed in traditional Amazigh clothes, this young man carrying a notepad and pen excitedly sat down beside me. He was a university student from Japan who had been living with this Amazigh family for four months to learn about their culture. Perfect! Maybe he could enlighten me as to how these people sustain their lives on this rugged mountain top - surely there was more to it than mint tea.

Mint tea, a traditional Moroccan drink and symbol of hospitality. Photography: Erin Jankovich

The young man pointed out across the valley and said “see”. For a while, all I saw was an expanse of orange rock but eventually like a stereogram the landscape came to life. Those little black dots were goats, dozens of goats! He walked me to the trailhead and pointed at the pale green tufts across the landscape. Mint, rosemary, sage, thyme, and verbena – these aromatic plants were right beneath my nose. This dusty landscape wasn’t so dead after all. He explained that the Amazigh people have extensive knowledge of the medicinal properties of hundreds of plants that grow in the High Atlas, and women will take several hour journeys to sell herbs in the valley markets. I wanted to learn more, but I was reminded of the long trek back to Tinerhir. I said goodbye, and thanked them all for such generous hospitality.

Afternoon tea with Amazigh family. Photography: Erin Jankovich

Morocco is dominated by a mountainous interior, bordered with rich coastal plains to the west and Sahara desert to the east. Since coming home from my trip, I have learned that this unique geography falls within the Mediterranean basin, a global biodiversity hotspot teeming with endemic flora and fauna found nowhere else on the planet (Rankou et al. 2013). Morocco alone has 879 endemic plants, the majority of which are restricted to the High Atlas region (Rankou et al., 2013).

The rich biodiversity of the High Atlas has been known to the Amazigh people for thousands of years, but only recently have researchers and scientists begun to draw their attention to this unique area. In 2015, scientists used IUCN Red List criteria to assess the status of endemic Moroccan flora and determined that many species are at risk of extinction due to climate change and habitat degradation (Rankou et al., 2015). These scientists emphasized that mountainous regions such as the High Atlas are especially sensitive to changes in climate and should be a top priority for conservationists, but so far very little research has gone into understanding the vegetation dynamics of this region.

Fresh and dry plants used for medicinal purposes found in traditional markets (image from Bouiamrine, 2017).

Many plant species picked by the Amazigh are highly toxic and dangerous to humans if not used appropriately (Mouhajir et al., 2001). Anecdotal evidence through surveys and interviews have revealed that the Amazigh people, specifically senior women, are experts in distinguishing between medicinal herbs and continue to pass on this traditional knowledge from one generation to the next (Bouiamrine, 2017). Many Moroccans still rely on traditional medicine to maintain good health thus conservation of these endemic herbs is critical for both the lives of the Amazigh and Moroccan market economy (Bouiamrine, 2017).

An Amazigh woman journeys across rugged terrain to sell herbs in modern markets. Photography: Erin Jankovich

I know better now that not all hotspots of biodiversity look like lush tropical jungles, but what they do have in common is an abundance of unique species that are threatened with extinction. Internationally the Mediterranean Basin has been recognized as providing significant ecosystem function and I was pleased to find that the Moroccan government has set national targets to preserve biodiversity and inventory traditional knowledge by 2020 (CBD, 2011).

Who better than the indigenous people of the High Atlas to help us understand the historical distribution of endemic plants and potential range shifts induced by climate change? Through sensitive and purposeful strategies for interaction with the Amazigh people—like the young student sharing a tea in the mountain—we may find that complimenting science with traditional ecological knowledge is the key to saving these unique landscapes.

References
Bouiamrine, E.H., Bachiri, L., Ibijbijen, J., & Nassiri, L. (2017). Use of medicinal plants in Middle Atlas of Morocco: potential health risks and indigenous knowledge in a Berber community. Journal of Medicinal Plant Studies, 5(2), 388-342.
Convention on Biological Diversity (2011). Electronic source. Retrieved from: https://www.cbd.int/countries/targets/?country=ma
Mouhajir, F., Hudson, J.B., Rejdali, M., & Towers, G.H.N. (2001). Multiple antiviral of endemic medicinal plants used by Berber peoples of Morocco. Pharmaceutical Biology, 39(5), 364-374.
Rankou, H., Culham, A., Jury, S.L., & Christenhusz M.J.M. (2013). The endemic flora of Morocco. Phytotaxa, 78 (1), 1-69.
Rankou, H., Culham, A. ,Taleb, M.S., Ouhammou, A., Martin, G., & Jury, S.L. (2015). Conservation assessments and Red Listing of the endemic Moroccan flora (monocotyledons). Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 177, 507-575.

What’s so great about Spain? Assessing UNESCO World Heritage inequality.

Some places are more valuable than others. We often regard places as being of high or unique value if they possess high biological diversity, ancient cultural artefacts and structures, or outstanding geological features. These valuable places deserve special recognition and protection. The sad reality is that when we are driven by immediate needs and desires, these special places are lost.

The natural world, and the wonderful diversity of plants and animals, is on the losing end of a long and undiminished conflict with human population growth, development, and resource extraction. We don’t notice it when there is ample natural space, but as nature becomes increasingly relegated to a few remaining places, we place a high value on them.

The same can be said for places with significant cultural value. Ancient temples, villages, and human achievement are too valuable to lose and we often only have a few remnants to connect us to the past.

In either case, natural or cultural, when they’re gone, we lose a part of us. That is because these special places tell us about ourselves; where we come from, how the world shaped us, and what unites all of humanity. Why did the world cry out in a united voice when the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001, even though many of those concerned people were not Buddhist? The answer is simple –the expansion of Buddhism out of India along ancient trade routes tells us why many Asian nations share a common religion. They tell us about ourselves, the differences that interest us, and the similarities that bind us. The same can be said about the global outcry over the recent destruction of the ancient city of Palmyra by ISIS.

Before and after photos of the taller of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Image posted by Carl Montgomery CC BY-SA 3.0.

Similarly, the natural world tells us about ourselves. The natural world has constantly shaped and influenced what it means to be human. Our desires, fears, and how we interact with the natural world are products of our evolution. If I flash a picture of a car to my 500-student ecology class, very few students, if any, screech in fear. But if I flash a photo of a hissing cobra or close-up of a spider, invariably a bunch of students squirm, gasp, or scream. Rationally, this is an odd response, since cars are the leading cause of death and injury in many western countries. Snakes and spiders kill very few people in Canada.

These special places deserve recognition and protection, and that is what the UNESCO World Heritage designation is meant to achieve. To get this designation for a site requires that countries nominate ones that represent unique and globally significant contributions to world heritage, and are adequately protected to ensure the long-term existence of these sites.  World Heritage sites are amazing places. They represent the gems of our global shared heritage. They need to be protected in perpetuity and should be accessible to all people. Though some I have visited seem like they are loved too much with high visitation rates degrading some elements of Heritage sites.

Examples of UNESCO World Heritage sites. A) The Great Wall of China. B) The Gaoligong Mountains, part of the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan. C) Angkor Wat in Cambodia. D) An example of a site that may be too loved -Lijiang in Yunnan. All photos by Shirley Lo-Cadotte and posted on our family travel blog -All The Pretty Places.

UNESCO World Heritage sites should also be representative. What I mean by this is that they should be designated regardless of national borders. Heritage sites are found on all continents across most countries –though a number of politically unstable countries (e.g., Liberia, Somalia, etc.) do not possess Heritage sites, likely because they lack the organization or resources to undertake the designation application process, and they lack the governance to ensure a site is adequately protected. But there are substantial differences in the number of World Heritage sites across nations[1]. Some countries, because of inherent priorities, national pride, resources or expertise, are better able to identify and persuade UNESCO that a particular place deserves designation.

The distribution of the number of UNESCO World Heritage sites across countries and the top ten.

Why do we see such disparity in the number of World Heritage sites -where many countries have few sites, and a few countries have many sites? This is a difficult question to answer, and to do so I took an empirical approach. I combined data on the number of sites per country with Gross Domestic Product (GDP)[2], country size[3], and country population size[4]. I then ran simple statistical analyses to figure out what predicts the number of Heritage sites, and identified those countries that are greatly over-represented by Heritage sites, and those that are very under-represented. A couple things to note, the best statistical models included variables that were all log-transformed, I excluded the World Heritage sites that spanned more than one country, and I did not include countries that did not have any Heritage sites. The data and R code have been posted to Figshare and are freely available.

All three of GDP, area, and population size predicted the number of World Heritage sites. It is important to note that these three country measures are not strongly correlated with one another (only moderately so). So, larger, richer and more populous countries had more World Heritage sites. This makes sense –big countries should contain more unique sites due to random chance and more populous countries tend to have longer historical presence of organized states, and so should possess more cultural relics (especially China). GDP is more difficult to assign a reason, but high GDP countries should have robust national parks or other bureaucratic structures that assess and protect important sites, making them easier to document and justify for UNESCO.  GDP is quite interesting, because it is the single best measure for predicting the number of Heritage sites, better than population size and area. Further, neither country density (population/area) nor productivity (GDP/population) are strong predictors of the number of Heritage sites.

The relationships between the number of World Heritage sites and GDP, area, and population. Note that the axes are all log-transformed.

While these relationships make sense, it is also clear that countries are not all close to the main regression line and some countries are well above the line –meaning they have more Heritage sites than predicted; as well as some below the line and thus having fewer sites. When I combine the different measures in different combinations and look for the best single statistical explanation for the number of World Heritage sites, I find that the combination including GDP and population size, and their interaction (meaning that population size is more important for high GDP countries) is the best. For aficionados, this model explains about 65% of the variation in the number of Heritage sites.

Now, we can identify those countries that are over or under represented by UNESCO World Heritage sites according to how far above or below countries are from the predicted line (technically, looking at statistical residuals).

The deviation of countries from the predicted relationship between the number of sites and GDP and population (and their interaction). The top 5 over-represented and under-represented countries are highlighted.

The top five over-represented countries are all European, which means that given their GDP and population size, these countries have more World Heritage sites than expected. At the other extreme, countries under-represented come from more diverse regions including Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

An interesting comparison to think about is Germany and Indonesia. Germany has more World Heritage sites than expected (residual = +0.61) and is a moderately sized, high GDP country. Let me say, I like Germany, I’ve been there a half a dozen times, and it has beautiful landscapes and great culture. However, does it deserve so much more World Heritage recognition than Indonesia, which has fewer sites than expected (residual = -0.63)? Indonesia has spectacular landscapes and immense biodiversity and great cultural diversity and history. To put it in perspective, Germany has 35 World Heritage sites and Indonesia has just 8.

To answer the question in the title of this post: what’s so great about Spain? Well, it not only has beautiful and diverse natural landscapes and cultural history, but it appears to have the infrastructure in place to identify and protect these sites. It's place at the top of UNESCOs relative (to GDP and population) ranking of the number of World Heritage sites means that Spain's natural and cultural wonders are in good hands. However, for the countries at the other end of the spectrum, having relatively few World Heritage sites probably is not a reflection of these countries being uninteresting, or that they have little to offer the world, rather it is something more alarming. These places lack the financial capacity or national will to fully recognize those places that are of value to the whole world. The problem is that the globally important heritage that does exist in these places is at risk of being lost. These under-represented countries serve as a call to the whole world to help countries not just identify and protect heritage sites but to aid these countries with infrastructure and human well-being that empowers them to prioritize their natural and cultural heritage.

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[1] Here I use the 2015 database of World Heritage sites.

[2] From: The United Nations 2014 GDP estimates.

[3] From: Wikipedia.

[4] From: The United Nations 2016 projections.

Science in China –feeding the juggernaut*

For those of us involved in scientific research, especially those that edit journals, review manuscripts or read published papers, it is obvious that there has been a fundamental transformation in the scientific output coming from China. Both the number and quality of papers have drastically increased over the past 5-10 years. China is poised to become a global leader in not only scientific output, but also in the ideas, hypotheses and theories that shape modern scientific investigation.

I have been living in China for a couple of months now (and will be here for 7 months more), working in a laboratory at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, and I have been trying to identify the reasons for this shift in scientific culture in China. Moreover, I see evidence that China will soon be a science juggernaut (or already is), and there are clear reasons why this is. Here are some reasons why I believe that China has become a science leader, and there are lessons for other national systems.

The reasons for China’s science success:

1.      University culture.

China is a country with a long history of scholarly endeavours. We can look to the philosophical traditions of Confucius 2500 years ago as a prime example of the respect and admiration of scholarly traditions. Though modern universities are younger in China than elsewhere (the oldest being about 130 years old), China has invested heavily in building Universities throughout the country. In the mid-1990s, the government built 100 new universities in China, and now graduates more than 6 million students every year from undergraduate programs.

Confucius (551-479 BC), the grand-pappy of all Chinese scholars

This rapid increase in the number of universities means that many are very modern with state-of-the-art facilities. This availability of infrastructure has fostered the growth of new colleges, institutes and departments, meaning that new faculty and staff have been hired. Many departments that I have visited have large numbers of younger Assistant and Associate Professors, many having been trained elsewhere, that approach scientific problems with energy and new ideas.

My new digs

2.      Funding

From my conversations with various scientists, labs are typically very well funded. With the expansion of the number of universities seems to have been an expansion in funds available for research projects. Professors need to write a fair number of grant proposals to have all of their projects funded, but it seems that success rates are relatively high, and with larger grants available to more senior researchers. This is in stark contrast to other countries, where funding is inadequate. In the USA, National Science Foundation funding rates are often below 10% (only 1 in 10 proposals are funded). This abysmal funding rate means that good, well-trained researchers are either not able to realize their ideas or spend too much of their time applying for funding. In China, new researchers are given opportunities to succeed.

3.      Collaboration

Chinese researchers are very collaborative. There are several national level ecological research networks (e.g., dynamic forest plots) that involve researchers from many institutions, as well as international collaborative projects (e.g., BEF China). In my visits to different universities, Chinese researchers are very eager to discuss shared research interests and explore the potential for collaboration. Further, there are a number of funding schemes to get students, postdocs and junior Professors out of China and into foreign labs, which promotes international collaboration. Collaborations provide the creative capital for new ideas, and allow for larger, more expansive research projects.

4.      Environmental problems

It is safe to say that the environment in China has been greatly impacted by economic growth and development over the past 30 years. This degradation of the environment has made ecological science extremely relevant to the management of natural resources and dealing with contaminated soil, air and water. Ecological research appears to have a relatively high profile in China and is well supported by government funding and agencies.

5.      Laboratory culture

In my lab in Canada, I give my students a great deal of freedom to pursue their own ideas and allow them much latitude in how they do it. Some students say that they work best at night, others in spurts, and some just like to have four-day weekends every week. While Chinese students seem equally able to pursue their own ideas and interests, students tend to have more strict requirements about how they do their work. Students are often expected to be in the lab from 9-5 (at least) and often six days a week. This expectation is not seen as demanding or unreasonable (as it probably would be in the US or Canada), but rather in line with general expectations for success (see next point).

Labs are larger in China. The lab I work in has about 25 Masters students and a further 6 PhD students, plus postdocs and technicians. Further, labs typically have a head professor and several Assistant or Associate Professors. When everyone is there everyday, there is definitely a vibe and culture that emerges that is not possible if everyone is off doing their own thing.

The lab I'm working in -"the intellectual factory"

Another major difference is that there is a clear hierarchy of respect. Masters students are expected to respect and listen to PhD students, PhD students respect postdocs and so on up to the head professor. This respect is fundamental to interactions among people. As it has been described to me, the Professor is not like your friend, but more like a father that you should listen to.

What’s clear is that lab culture and expectations are built around the success of the individual people and the overall lab. And success is very important –see next point.

6.      Researcher/student expectations

I left the expectations on researchers for last because this needs a longer and more nuanced discussion. My own view of strict expectations has changed since coming to China, and I can now see the motivating effect these can have.

For Chinese researchers it is safe to say that publications are gold. Publishing papers, and especially the type of journal those papers appear determine career success in a direct way. A masters student is required to publish one paper, which could be in a local Chinese journal. A PhD student is required to publish two papers in international journals. PhD students who receive a 2-year fellowship to travel to foreign labs are required to publish a paper from that work as well. For researchers to get a professor position, they must have a certain number of publications in high-impact international journals (e.g., Impact Factor above 5).

Professors are not immune from these types of expectations. Junior professors are not tenured, nor are they able to get tenure until they qualify for the next tier, and they need to constantly publish. To get a permanent position as a full professor or group leader, they need to have a certain number of high impact papers. For funding applications, their publication records are quantified (number and impact factors of journals) and they must surpass some threshold.

Of course in any country, your publication record is the most important component for your success as a researcher, but in China the expectations are clearly stated.

While there are pros and cons of such a reward based system, and certainly the pressure can be overwhelming, I’ve witnessed the results of this system. Students are extremely motivated and have a clear idea what it means to be successful. To get two publications in a four year PhD requires a lot of focus and hard work; there is no time for drifting or procrastinating.

So why has Chinese science been so successful? It is because a number of factors have coalesced around and support a general high demand for success. Regardless of the number of institutional and funding resources available, this success is only truly realized because of researchers' desire to exceed strict expectations. And they are doing so wonderfully.  

*over the next several months I will write a series of posts on science and the environment in China

Understanding modern human society through the lens of evolution

Book review of Edmund Russell’s ‘Evolutionary History’

We often think about the ways in which evolution has shaped this world, from the amazing diversity of cichlid fishes in the African Great Lakes, to Australian marsupials that seem to replicate strategies that placental mammals have evolved elsewhere (e.g., Tasmanian tiger and the North American wolf). We even look at our own bodies or behaviors to find evolution’s imprint –why do I have a non-functional appendix attached to my intestine? However, we seldom look to important events in human history to examine the effects of evolution, yet, according to Edmund Russell, human history can be better understood through evolution –like my appendix.

Russell is advocating for a new field of inquiry within the study of human history –namely, evolutionary history. When I first read the book jacket, I must admit that I was skeptical. However, this book makes the compelling case that historians gain a much fuller understanding past events by including evolution. Russell’s main claim is that modern civilization is the product of an evolution revolution. Even Russell’s unremarkable dog “Riley, like all dogs, is a testament to the extraordinary power of human beings to shape the evolution of other species”. While citing dogs may seem like a trivial example, it was coevolution that shaped this relationship. Wolves that were less aggressive and less fearful, which tend to be more puppy-like, found benefits by associating with human groups. Human groups that tolerated the presence of these wolves were likely alerted to approaching threats. Even the fact that dogs bark is a product of this relationship. This evolution revolution can similarly explain the domestication of other animals and plants, and ultimately produces the necessary conditions for permanent large settlements.

An important and intriguing underlying theme of this book is that these evolutionary revolutions are not often the product of conscious effort. We are used to the narrative that highlights humans as selecting individuals and driving the evolution towards some goal. But this would require early peoples knowing what they wanted in the end, having a specific goal. In the dog example, do we really think that early humans thought ‘hey, I would like a poodle’? No, the reality is that canines and human changed with one another producing a mutually beneficial outcome. Even the domestication of many of the earliest crop species likely resulted from lazy and sloppy humans. Lazy because humans probably harvested the easiest, most accessible fruits and seeds –selecting for bigger, easily removed fruits that ripened at the same time. Sloppy because seeds were discarded around settlements. Then that laziness again means we looked to those nearby plants for harvesting. Thus evolution has continually informed the development of human civilization and produced the much of the cultural norms today.

While modern cultures may consciously drive evolution through selective breeding and genetic engineering, we are immersed in an evolving world. Diseases that are resistant to drugs, pest that are immune to pesticides, and commercial fish that are now smaller and reproduce earlier are examples of important evolutionary changes that affect human activities and economics. Russell provides evidence that evolution is in part responsible for the industrial revolution, due to some varieties of cotton evolving particular features.

Taken all together, Russell admirably succeeds in his goal of convincing the reader that evolution has influenced much of human civilization. Moreover, his intended audience of historians should be re-assessing previous explanations of important human events by asking the basic question: how has evolutionary change influenced major changes in human history.

Edmund Russell. 2011. Evolutionary History. Cambridge University Press.