Category: Genebanks

Posted on

The value of Natura 2000

Speaking of return on conservation actions, which we sort of were a couple of days back:

A new study has produced the first indicative estimate of the overall economic benefits provided by the Natura 2000 network. It suggests that the value could be currently between €200 and €300 billion per year, or 2% to 3% of the EU’s Gross Domestic Product.

That’s from one item in a special Thematic Issue of the European Commission’s news alert organ Science for Environment Policy which focuses on “Management and Monitoring of the NATURA 2000 Network,” (pdf) a network of protected areas that is described in the editorial introducing the issue as the “cornerstone of EU biodiversity policy.”

Natura 2000 site at Bärwurzwiese, Belgium. Photo made available under a CC license by Frank Vassen via Flickr.
Here’s the table of contents the whet your appetite

  • What does ‘wilderness’ mean?
  • First EU-wide economic valuation of Natura 2000 network
  • Improved local management needed for the Natura 2000 network
  • Natura 2000 Case Study Hoge Kempen: from coal mining landscape to oasis of biodiversity
  • Improved communication about Natura 2000 may help resolve landowner conflicts
  • Ecotourism: protecting the nature of Natura 2000 in Latvia
  • Natura 2000 Case Study Slitere National Park: sustainable tourism in a Natura 2000 site
  • Natura 2000 Case Study Eurosite – Adaptive Management of Natura 2000 sites
  • Protected areas act as stepping stones for nature in the face of climate change
  • New Belgian approach to favourable conservation status for habitats and species of European interest
  • Sustaining the Natura 2000 network through LIFE

We’ve talked before about Natura 2000 in the context of conservation of crop wild relatives. I’m willing to bet that return on investment doesn’t take into account any species important in crop improvement that the network happens to be protecting. But if you know better, let us know.

Posted on

Nibbles: Survival seeds, Turkish agrobiodiversity, Mainstreaming nutrition, Hot times for conservation, Ethiopian sesame, Conserved DNA

  • Survival seed bank in the news again. Must be Christmas.
  • Turkish nibbles: wine, pictachios. That wine one will no doubt run and run.
  • How to make sure nutrition gets a seat at the agricultural development table. And Danny breaks it down for ya.
  • What leads to spurts in conservation effort? In situ only, but instructive.
  • Sesame is big business in Ethiopia.
  • Boffins find yet another bit of DNA that will save the world.
Posted on

Crop Genetic Resources as a Global Commons book in the global commons

Just a very quick note to say that Crop Genetic Resources as a Global Commons: Challenges in International Law is available in Google Books. Edited by Michael Halewood, Isabel Lopez Noriega (both of Bioversity International) and Selim Louafi (formerly of the ITPGRFA), and with dozens of people contributing to 19 chapters ranging over the whole philosophy, history, design and context of the International Treaty, it’s a really important resource.

Posted on

The value of ICARDA

ICARDA is deservedly getting much traction with the press at the Doha climate change meeting with the report “Strategies for Combating Climate Change in Drylands Agriculture,” which it has produced in collaboration with the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). A testament to great research over many years; and an open, active communications policy.

Particularly welcome to see the genebank’s role in climate change adaptation clearly highlighted in the report:

Releases of plant genetic materials from ICARDA’s gene banks, which host wild relatives of barley, wheat and legumes, has led to the development of crops with higher yields and greater resistance to a range of biotic stresses. Some varieties also offer large improvements in bread-making quality, nutritional value and other traits.

The document goes so far as to quantify the return on investment from breeding, which is something that you don’t see as often as you should:

That $850 million figure is not detailed further, but the suggestion is that it is built up from examples such as this, of which there are several more outlined in the report:

A drought tolerant variety of chick pea introduced in Turkey had such strong resistance that it was able to withstand the searing temperatures and rainfall scarcity of the 2007 drought. The ‘Gokce’ variety is now used for about 80% of the country’s chickpea production. With a yield advantage of 300 kg/ha over other varieties and world prices of over US$1000/t, this variety brought in an additional US$165 million for Turkish farmers in 2007 alone.

Obviously a significant achievement, and it seems churlish to ask whether it’s entirely a good thing for a country to rely on one variety for 80% of its production of a given crop. Anyway, it seems there are similar impact figures for livestock improvement too. It would be good eventually to see the breakdown by crop, and indeed livestock species, plus of course the level of investment that went into breeding efforts on each species to produce these new varieties and breeds. In the meantime, let’s remind ourselves of what a unique, vital resource the ICARDA genebank is by looking, courtesy of Genesys, at the geographic spread of the material it manages on behalf of the world under an agreement with the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (click to enbiggen), and that it, and the associated data, are, thankfully, safe.

Posted on

Conserving wild animals the hard way

With regard to … sperm collection from wild animals, FAO does not have guidelines on this, given our emphasis on domestic livestock. However, if the animal can be sacrificed, epididymal sperm collection may be an option. This procedure is briefly discussed in the FAO Guidelines for Cryoconservation of Animal (domestic) Genetic Resources (pages 99-100) (http://www.fao.org/docrep/016/i3017e/i3017e00.pdf) but some experimentation would likely be needed to adapt it to your species of choice. If the animal must remain alive, options may be to remove sperm from the testes by using a syringe (PESA — Percutaneous Epididymal Sperm Extraction), to surgically implant a catheter or by removal of only a single testicle for sperm collection, leaving the other intact. Two scientific documents on epididymal semen collection in livestock by Dr. Flavia Pizzi (one of the authors of the FAO Cryoconservation Guidelines) and her colleagues are available at:

ftp://DADnet:Mobile45@ext-ftp.fao.org/ag/reserved/dad-net/ReprDomAnim_epididimi2012.pdf (278 kb)

ftp://DADnet:Mobile45@ext-ftp.fao.org/ag/reserved/dad-net/PosterSLTB.pdf (870 kb)

For “conventional” sperm collection from living wild animals, an electro-ejaculator is often used, although this approach will not be successful for all species (e.g. it’s generally not used for pigs and horses among livestock species). In case your target species is wild cats, the following may be of use to you:

http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/31238/InTech-Wildlife_cats_reproductive_biotechnology.pdf

That’s from the always interesting DAD-Net. Makes me ever so very grateful the wild relatives I deal with are plants.