This made me happy. Seventeen years after we first blogged about the sad fate of the Iraqi national genebank at Abu Ghraib, it has re-opened.
It goes with one in Sulaymaniyah that was opened a few weeks back.
Until now, Iraq’s only conservation facility was the National Gene/Seed Bank in Abu Ghraib, established in 1977, which required rehabilitation to meet modern conservation standards for its collection of around 3,500 accessions. No comparable facility existed in the Kurdistan Region, despite being home to more than 70 percent of Iraq’s plant genetic resources.
The project therefore combined the rehabilitation of the National Seed Bank in Baghdad with the construction of a new Gene/Seed Bank in Sulaymaniyah, creating complementary facilities that together strengthen Iraq’s national capacity to conserve and sustainably use its invaluable plant genetic resources.