Mountain biodiversity at risk: Threats to knowledge from high places

Twenty-some plants supply 80 per cent of humanity’s food. Six of them, maize, potatoes, barley, sorghum, apples and tomatoes, originated in mountain areas. Seven others, wheat, rice, beans, oats, grapes, oranges and rye found new homes in the mountains and evolved into many different varieties. Diversification continues to thrive in the mountains of Africa, Latin America and the Himalayas, where farmers cultivate a multitude of traditional forms of these plants. This is fortunate for us all. Down on the plains, the many “varieties of the land,” which were the source of..