20 Jul 2007 - Gland, Switzerland
– While protected areas such as national
parks have been established to conserve
charismatic animal and plant species, very
few have been set aside to protect wild
plants from which our crops originate, a
WWF report reveals.
The report, Food Stores: Using protected
areas to secure crop genetic diversity,
published with the University of Birmingham
in the UK, found that the centres of diversity
of principal cultivated plants are poorly
protected.
Poor protection
Many of these centres have only five per
cent protection, some have only one per
cent or less. They include: the Central
Andean wet puna of Peru and Bolivia, well
known as reservoirs of grains and root crops
including the potato; the Eastern Anatolian
deciduous forests and steppe of Iran, Turkey
and Armenia, centres of diversity for many
grains and fruit species; the Southern Korea
evergreen forests important for their genetic
resources of tea; and the Malaysian rainforests
which are centres of diversity for many
tropical fruit species, particularly mangoes.
"Crop wild relatives and varieties
are the world's repositories of crop genetic
diversity and vital in ensuring future food
security," said Duncan Pollard, Director
of WWF's Global Forest Programme.
"With world population increasing
and at a time of rapid environmental changes
due to climate change, it is crucial that
we conserve the widest possible natural
genetic base of our food crops."
Seed banks, where genetic resources are
conserved under controlled conditions, can
help in times of change. However, they are
unable to conserve the full range of crop
genetic diversity because of the sheer number
of seed samples involved.
"Crop wild relatives and traditional
varieties, which continue to evolve in their
natural environment, are better placed to
provide the necessary genetic materials
to combat new pests or plant diseases,"
Pollard added.
Community knowledge
Traditional farmers, who have contributed
to crop diversity for millenniums, often
can no longer do so as they abandon traditional
farming systems for modern techniques and
more genetically uniform crop varieties.
Communities that lose locally-bred varieties
and the knowledge of how to grow them, risk
losing control of their farming systems
and becoming dependent on outside sources
of seeds and the inputs needed to grow and
protect them.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization, about 75 per cent of the genetic
diversity of agricultural crops has already
been lost in the last century.
Loss of traditional varieties has important
implications for social equity. Also, the
loss of varieties bred to cope with local
climatic conditions can impact the ability
of impoverished communities to survive periods
of drought or other atypical conditions.
In addition to more protection of our crop
genetic diversity is the need for more protected
area funding.
"A tiny fraction of profits from the
companies dominating the agribusiness market
would considerably boost the budgets, and
thus increase protection, of many of the
world's under-resourced protected areas
which conserve important crop genetic resources,"
Pollard said.
"Governments should also be encouraged
to expand and strengthen their existing
protected areas network to include crop
diversity conservation."
WWF calls on all those who rely on crop
genetic resources and diversity to formulate
strategies that promote conservation of
crop wild relatives and traditional varieties.
They should work together to conserve this
vital element of biodiversity, and help
secure global food security, especially
for the world's poorest.
Surin Suksuwan, WWF Global Forests Programme
Nigel Maxted, School of Biosciences, University
of Birmingham, UK
