The loss of biological diversity: wide collection and international ex situ conservation programmes as a response

Setting up an international collection and conservation agenda

In the nineteenth century, discoveries by Charles Darwin² and Gregor Mendel³ proved the importance of genetic diversity for biological evolution and adaptation.

Scientists started to pay attention to the importance and potential value of genetic diversity (Biber-Klemm and Cottier, 2006: 7-10), and governments of developed countries began to subsidize major collecting campaigns (Aoki, 2008: 12-16). European nations set up a global network of botanical gardens (Aoki, 2008: 11, citing Brockway, 1979; Kloppenburg, 2004: 156-157), and the US (which is fairly poor in genetic diversity) played a key role in the collection, transfer and exploitation of PGRFA (Shands, 1995; Pistorius, 1997: 5-7). Aoki provides several examples of American-funded seed collection projects during the nineteenth century, explaining that only a state power could bear the weight and costs of such collecting and breeding activities that constituted the basis of a stable American agricultural foundation (Aoki, 2008: 13-14). Later, in the twentieth century, Nikolai Vavilov,⁴ a famous Russian botanist and geneticist, identified eight centres of origin of cultivated plants (Brush, 2004: 25-28; Andersen, 2008: 17-19) and showed that cultivated plants originated in primary and secondary centres of origin and diversity.⁵ He spent his lifetime collecting, studying and improving wheat, corn and other cereal staple crops (Vavilov and Dorofeev, 1992) and created in St. Petersburg one of the biggest gene banks in the world: the N.I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry.

After World War II, conscious about the value of genetic diversity and worried by their continuing loss (Dirzo and Raven, 2003: 158-160),⁶ Member States of the newly born United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) decided to put the issue on their agenda.

In 1958, the US established the first national genebank of long-term storage (the National Seed Storage Laboratory (NSSL) in Fort Collins, Colorado) (Brush, 2004: 195-196). In 1948, FAO created a clearinghouse for plant exploration, recording living collections and removing

History of the seed regulatory setting 27 artificial barriers in the exchange of plants (Pistorius, 1997: 10-14). Following this initiative, three international technical conferences on plant genetic resources were held by FAO in 1967, 1973 and 1981 (Esquinas-Alcazar, 1993). These conferences contributed to raise awareness on the importance of PGRFA conservation. Between 1964 and 1974, the objective of FAO and the International Biological Programme (IBP)⁷ was to make a wide survey on genetic resources in the fields to identify where priority exploration and conservation programmes were needed; to develop long-term conservation of seeds (which mainly took the form of ex situ gene banks); to develop a cooperative network of seed storage laboratories and to document in a more systematic manner all genetic information through the creation of a Global Ex Situ Conservation Network (Frankel and Hawkes, 1975: chapters 1 and 37; Pistorius, 1997: Chapter 5). The overall objectives were to

assemble, and in many instances to salvage what is left of the crop genetic resources, to see that it is preserved against loss and deterioration, to make it generally available to those who can evaluate and use it, and to process and publish all available evaluation records for the benefit of all users.

(Frankel and Hawkes, 1975: 473)

In the early 1970s, Prof. Harlan, a famous botanist and geneticist teaching at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, warned that the increase of the world’s population would lead to major hunger crises and that although there would be industrial solutions to food problems, in reality ‘there seems to be no way out’ (Harlan, 1975: 267). Furthermore, Frankel and Hawkes (1975: chapter 37; see also Christensen, 1987: 281) argued that the amplification of pollution and of seed loss made it urgent for stakeholders to organize themselves through a global exchange network to ‘save what can be saved’.

In 1972, the UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm strengthened the international agenda for collecting PGRFA and building long-term storage banks (Brush, 2004: 196). ‘Strongly worded recommendations were carried urging governments and UN agencies to save and preserve irreplaceable genetic resources for the good of present and future generations’ (Frankel and Hawkes, 1975: 4-5). The Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) allocated substantial funds to this aim. Besides, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)⁸ created the International Board for Plant genetic Resources (IBPGR) in 1974 which, together with other CGIAR-supported International Agricultural Research Centres (IARC), set up wide collection missions in response to the rapid erosion of PGRFA (Plucknett et al., 1983; Moore and Frison, 2011) resulting inter alia from the ‘Green Revolution’.⁹ Andersen notes that ‘the erosion of PGRFA had been increasing at an unprecedented rate due to the “green revolution”, and the efforts of the IBPGR were vital to saving plant varieties in danger of extinction’ (Andersen, 2008 : 89; see also Bragdon, 2004 : 13-14). The financial administration of these collection and conservation activities was assigned to the

newly created IBPGR¹⁰ (Christensen, 1987: 292-295), while the FAO Expert Panel constituted in 1972 at a conference in Beltsville, US, acted as its technical committee (Pistorius, 1997: Chapters 1 to 4). The die was cast for 20 years of conservation activities (Johnston, 1993) mainly focused on ex situ collections, at the expense of in situ conservation and of crop diversity on farms (Fowler, 1994: 184-188; see also Brush, 2004: chapter 9).

Importance of crop diversity and the continuing loss of PGRFA

In spite of their vital importance for human survival, PGRFA are still being lost at an alarming rate, both in situ and ex situ (Starr and Hardy, 1993: 86-87).

Hundreds of thousands of farmers’ heterogeneous plant varieties and landraces, which have been developed for generations in farmers’ fields until the beginning of the twentieth century, have been substituted by a very small number of modern and highly uniform commercial varieties (FAO, 1996a: 165).¹¹ In the US alone, more than 90 per cent of the fruit trees and vegetables that were grown in farmers’ fields at the beginning of the twentieth century can no longer be found. Today only a few of them are maintained in gene banks. In Mexico, only 20 per cent of the maize varieties described in 1930 are still known. In China, in 1949 nearly 10,000 wheat varieties were known and used. By the 1970s, only about 1,000 remained in use. A similar picture is reported for melon varieties in Spain. In 1970, over 350 local varieties of melons were collected and documented; today no more than 5 per cent of them can still be found in the field. The picture is much the same throughout the world (FAO, 1996b). The FAO’s first report on the state of the world’s PGRFA (FAO, 1996a) estimated that some 7000 species had been used by humankind to satisfy human basic needs, while today no more than 30 cultivated species provide 90 per cent of human calorific food supplied by plants. Furthermore, 12 plant species alone provide more than 70 per cent of all human calorific food and a mere four plant species (potatoes, rice, maize and wheat) provide more than half of all human calorific food.

The genetic vulnerability¹² caused by the loss of agricultural biological diversity (Christensen, 1987) has not only affected small farmers’ livelihoods but has also drastically reduced the capability of present and future generations to adapt to changing conditions. In addition, many neglected crops and many wild relatives of crops are expected to play a critical role in food, medicine and energy production in the near future. Efforts for the conservation of crop diversity and their sustainable use therefore need to be continued and increased (Fowler and Hodgkin, 2004).

In this spirit, already in 1990, Fowler and Mooney had identified five ‘laws’ of genetic diversity conservation, which are still valid even 25 years later:

(1) Agricultural diversity can only be safeguarded through the use of diverse strategies; (2) What agriculture diversity is saved depends on who is consulted. How much is saved depends on how many people are involved; (3) Agricultural diversity will not be saved unless it is used; (4) Agricultural

History of the seed regulatory setting 29 diversity cannot be saved without saving the farm community. Conversely, the farm community cannot be saved without saving diversity; (5) The need for diversity is never-ending. Therefore, our efforts to preserve this diversity can never cease.

(Fowler and Mooney, 1990: 2018)

Box 2.2 The loss of biological diversity

• 1859 and 1866: Discoveries by Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel

• End nineteenth century: Plant expeditions and first national gene banks

• Beginning twentieth century: Colonialism opens new markets for PGRFA

• 1930s: Nikolai Vavilov identifies 8 centres of origin of crop diversity

• Post World War II: Creation of international institutions dealing with plant genetic resources (FAO, CGIAR)

• 1948: FAO starts technical work on PGRFA collection and conservation

• 1960s: Green Revolution R&D and technology transfer initiatives

• 1974: Creation of the International Board for Plant Genetic resources (now Bioversity International) to support collection and conservation

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Source: Frison Christine. Redesigning the Global Seed Commons: Law and Policy for Agrobiodiversity and Food Security. Routledge,2019. — 294 p.. 2019

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