Dr. Gil Saguiguit Jr. assumed the leadership of Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca) as its ninth director, succeeding Dr. Arsenio Balisacan who completed his second three-year term on July 13.

At a simple farewell program tendered by the center on July 13, Dr. Balisacan delivered his exit report, which highlighted the progress made by Searca toward the direction of mainstreaming agriculture in the development agenda.

LAST year Cesar Pasco, a businessman from San Pablo City, Laguna, shipped several container vans of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) handicrafts abroad. After a few weeks, all the items—covered with molds—were returned to him.

“I did not know then how to dry and preserve the water hyacinth stems correctly,” Pasco says.

A seminar conducted by Forest Products Research and Development Institute (FPRDI), an agency of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), helped wipe out this problem. Today Pasco enjoys brisk business, exporting durable, fungi-free water hyacinth wine-bottle holders to Europe.

“Starting last year, training on water-hyacinth processing has been among our most in demand courses,” says Dr. Emelyne Cortiguerra, head of the FPRDI’s training unit. “People working in the industry ask us to teach them how to protect water-hyacinth stems from fungi and insects.”

This is a big concern as the material has a very high moisture content that it is an easy target for molds. Entrepreneurs are also taught dyeing techniques so that they can make their products as varied and as artistic as possible.

UXBRIDGE, Canada—Save the living environment and the physical environment will automatically be saved, according to E.O. Wilson, the world’s leading biologist and father of the online Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), which plans to create a Web page for every known species—all 1.8-plus million.