Red de Terra Madre en Chile: Apicultores de Miel de Madroño скачать в хорошем качестве

Red de Terra Madre en Chile: Apicultores de Miel de Madroño

In a valley near the small town of Coronel del Maule, 26-year old Eduardo Meza is working with Slow Food representatives to achieve the food community designation for a cooperative of beekeepers that produce Madroño or Corontillo honey (Escallonia pulverulenta), an endemic plant species and corresponding unique honey that is only found in central Chile. Eduardo married into a family that has been keeping bees in the valley for at least three decades. He is working with the "old school" beekeepers of the region to revive traditional practices, to treat diseases using natural methods and to create a value-added alternative to the homogenization and bulk exportation of honey that is common practice. His is a particularly interesting proposal in a zone that is heavily forested and in which pollinator biodiversity is threatened by monoculture pine and Eucalyptus plantations. It is the hope of these beekeepers to promote beekeeping as an alternative to deforestation -- and they feel an international recognition from Slow Food could help them make this vision a reality. Along with promoting the Madron honey, Eduardo's rural community sees being associated with Slow Food as a way to preserve their unique, pristine location, its rural culture, associated crops and traditional foods and a heritage wine grape, "uva pais" found nowhere else on the planet. They eventually hope to have Madron honey be a part of the Ark of Taste -- or Baluarte in Spanish. There are 23 honeys from around the world currently included in the Ark of Taste, from Melipona bee Honey from Argentina to Wenchi Volcano Honey from Ethiopia to Tupelo Honey from the American Southeast.