22 May 2008 - As a deadly
new strain of Black Stem Rust devastates
wheat harvests across Africa and Arabia,
and threatens the staple food supply of
a billion people from Egypt to Pakistan,
the areas where potentially crop and life-saving
remnant wild wheat relatives grow are only
minimally protected.
“Our basic food plants
have always been vulnerable to attack from
new strains of disease or pests and the
result is often mass hunger and starvation,
as anyone who remembers their school history
of the Irish Potato Famine will know,” said
Liza Higgins-Zogib, Manager of People and
Conservation at WWF International.
“In more recent times
we have avoided similar collapses in the
production when disease strikes essential
foodstuffs like wheat by developing new
commercial varieties from naturally resistant
wild relatives.”
“Unfortunately the natural
habitat of most of the wild or traditional
descendents of our modern food plants is
without legal and physical protection, leaving
them at risk.”
Also at risk are the
indigenous and traditional peoples who are
critical parts of the landscapes associated
with crop wild relatives, who are losing
their lands and cultural practices – which
puts humanity's food at even further risk.
Wheat and barley originated
in an arc mainly to the north of the Fertile
Crescent (modern day Iraq) where their domestication
was linked with the development by early
Mesopotamian civilizations of cities, irrigation
and laws. Ecoregions such as the Eastern
Anatolian montane steppe, where wheat's
wild relatives remain, now combine low levels
of critical habitat in protected areas (3.14
per cent) with alarming levels of habitat
loss (55.6 per cent).
WWF today release a
map Centres of food crop diversity threatened
and under protected correlates updated protected
area statistics with key Crop Wild Relative
(CWR) areas and draws on a study conducted
by WWF, environmental research group Equilibrium
and the School of Biosciences at the University
of Birmingham, published as Food Stores:
Using protected areas to secure crop genetic
diversity in 2006.
Other crops where levels
of protection for remnant crop wild relatives
fall below five percent include rice varieties
in Bangladesh, homelands for lentils, peas,
grapes and almonds, and areas of Spain where
a protected area ratio of 4.6% significant
for wild olive relatives is mismatched by
the loss of almost three quarters of all
habitat.
The Americas fare slightly
better, but important areas of agrobiodiversity
including areas where corn originated and
important to wild relatives of the potato
are less than 10 % protected.
“The wild relatives
of commercial crops provide a critical reserve
of genes that are regularly needed to strengthen
and adapt their modern domestic cousins
in a changing world,” Higgins-Zogib said.
“We already have reserves
and national parks to protect charismatic
species like pandas and tigers, and to preserve
outstanding areas of natural beauty. It
is now time to offer protection to the equally
valuable wild and traditional relatives
of the plants that feed the world like rice,
wheat and potatoes.
“And because people
are part of landscapes too, we urge conservationists
and governments thinking of new protected
areas to allow the full and effective participation
of indigenous peoples – particularly the
women who have traditionally been the gardeners
and seedkeepers of their communities.”
+ More
As Ukraine faces censure,
WWF studies alternatives to controversial
Danube shipping channel
19 May 2008 - With Ukraine
expected this week to be found in contravention
of its obligations under an international
convention to consult with its neighbours
on transboundary projects with environmental
implications, WWF has commissioned a study
into alternatives to the Danube delta Bystroye
Canal at the centre of the dispute.
“Shipping through the
Bystroye channel cannot be permitted following
findings that it will lead to significant
trans-boundary impacts to vital natural
systems of international and global importance,”
said Michael Baltzer, Director of the WWF
Danube-Carpathian Programme.
“Once that is accepted,
we can all move ahead to implement alternatives
for Ukraine to improve navigation between
the Black Sea and the Danube that have less
severe impacts and still meet social and
economic needs.”
The WWF-commissioned
report, which will be available at the end
of June 2008, will present alternatives
to the Bystroye for promoting shipping in
the Ukrainian part of the Delta. The report
is being undertaken by the Dutch consulting
company DHV B.V. and involves a team of
shipping experts from both Ukraine and Romania.
A peer review of the
report’s findings will be undertaken with
national stakeholders in both the Ukrainian
and Romanian parts of the Danube Delta,
including e.g. the Ukrainian Academy of
Sciences and Danube Delta Research Institute.
The Danube Delta, which
is shared by Ukraine and Romania and includes
UNESCO Biosphere Reserves and a World Heritage
Site, is one of the world’s most valuable
natural areas, with over 1,000 species of
plants, 300 bird species and fish. It includes
nesting sites for globally threatened bird
species such as the Dalmatian and White
Pelicans, pygmy cormorant, the red-breasted
goose and several endangered species of
sturgeon.
Ukraine's construction
of the first phase of the deepwater channel
and its approval of the second phase will
be considered this week at a meeting in
Bucharest of parties to the United Nations
Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention
on Environmental Impact Assessment in a
Transboundary Context (sometimes called
the Espoo Convention after the Finnish city
where it was adopted in 1991).
The convention requires
that member States notify and consult each
other on projects that may have adverse
transboundary environmental impacts. Following
concerns expressed by Romania, a scientific
panel established under the convention concluded
in 2006 that Ukraine's Bystroye Channel
project would have such impacts and called
for Ukraine to suspend further development
of the project until proper trans-boundary
assessments and consultations could be undertaken.
The convention's Implementation
Committee has since prepared findings that
Ukraine is in non-compliance with its obligations
which are expected to be endorsed by the
full meeting of parties on 21 May.
Baltzer noted recent
news reports that Ukrainian Premier Yulia
Tymoshenko has pledged that all ecological
issues that may arise over the work on building
the canal will be resolved, saying “Finding
an alternative to the Bystroye Canal is
a real option, and the only option if this
pledge is to be kept.”
“WWF hopes that the
study we have commissioned will help identify
solutions for promoting navigation while
safeguarding the vital and globally important
natural heritage and ecosystem services
of the Danube Delta.”
WWF has been working
to protect and preserve the Danube Delta
for more than a decade. In 2002, WWF in
cooperation with experts from the Odessa
Water Management Board, Danube Biosphere
Reserve and other scientific institutions
published a vision for the protection and
restoration of the Danube Delta, which they
are now implementing.
Wetland areas on Tataru
Island have been restored. Later this year,
Katlabuh Lake will be reconnected to the
Danube, helping to revive the dying lake
and improve water quality for local communities
and the fisheries on which they depend.
