Making a start on conservation of crop wild relatives.

A project to support the conservation of crop wild relatives got under way during 2005. ‘In situ conservation of crop wild relatives through enhanced information management and field application’ aims to develop rational, cost-effective approaches to conserving the diversity of the wild relatives that are so crucial to the future of plant breeding. In five countries : Armenia, Bolivia, Madagascar, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan, and with five international conservation agencies are partners in the project—the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), the United Nations Environment Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEPWCMC), the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the German Centre for Documentation and Information in Agriculture (ZADI), IPGRI is helping to safeguard the future of crop wild relatives. There are four components to the project: - An international information system aims to provide a portal through which people around the world can use the Internet to search for information about the identity, conservation status, distribution and potential uses of crop wild relatives. - National information systems underpin the international system, and national partners are analyzing their existing information and constructing the building blocks of the international system. They will also test the effectiveness of the international system to support conservation decisions in each country. - The third component is capacity development, enhancing the ability of the partner countries to come up with effective strategies for conservation and monitoring of crop wild relatives. - Finally, the project aims to increase public awareness of the importance of crop wild relatives for agricultural biodiversity and sustainable livelihoods. The crop wild relatives project is committed to enhancing awareness in order to build support, and will undertake a variety of national and international efforts to promote agricultural biodiversity and the importance of wild relatives. An essential first step is to assess the current level of awareness among various target audiences, which anecdotally is believed to be very low in all the countries. IPGRI has developed a model survey, which the country partners are modifying to suit their individual needs. The idea is to repeat the survey towards the end of the project to gauge changes in public awareness. The wild relatives of crops will continue to be important as farmers and plant breeders seek the qualities they need to deal with changes in conditions. Wild relatives have already provided resistance to several pests and diseases and the ability to withstand stresses such as drought. The global project will help to ensure that they can continue to do so.

Crop wild relatives Progress has been made in a global effort to manage the sustainable use and conservation of the wild relatives of domesticated plant species.