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Bioversity International is shaking up the food system says Food Tank
Bioversity International was mentioned by the Food Tank: The Food Think Tank as one of the 40 organizations that are shaking up the food system. "Our hope is that the more people know about the work that these groups are doing, the more people can be inspired to make their own change in the food system," said the co-founders of the blog.
Semantics for Biodiversity – International Workshop
The 1st international workshop on Web Semantics for Biodiversity, held on 27 May in Montpellier, France, will define key challenges identified by the bioinformatics community, discuss solutions and identify opportunities emerging from interactions across plant science and informatics disciplines.
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Catching up with Dr. Prem Mathur at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity
Prem Mathur, South Asia Coordinator, is one of the Bioversity International delegation attending the UN Meeting on Biodiversity in Hyderabad - featured in this video talking to COP 11 TV earlier today. We find a moment to catch up with Dr. Mathur during a short break in his busy schedule:
Q: Tell us why it is important for you to be here at the CBD COP11?
A: As a scientist at Bioversity International, I am responsible for the implementation of all our South Asia programmes which includes India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. I am here to participate in several events on: climate change adaptation, the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing, Tree Diversity Day, biological and cultural diversity in North-east India, biological approaches to community-based adaptation and mitigation to climate change. I am particularly interested in discussions around how the conservation and use of agricultural and tree biodiversity can help contribute to meeting the world biodiversity targets and mitigating climate change.
Q: Can you tell us more about your work on climate change adaptation?
A: I am currently involved in base-broadening in farming system and use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for mapping biodiversity and climate change adaptation in the Indo-Gangetic Plain region, including India, Nepal and Bangladesh. When working on climate change adaptation it is really important to work directly with smallholder farmers and communities to establish a farmers’ network to exchange knowledge on the ground.
Q: Why do you think the conservation and use of biodiversity should be supported by governments and donors?
A: The Indian government has done a very good job of conserving the nation’s biodiversity. After the Green Revolution, when Indian farmers stopped growing the traditional varieties of crops which had developed over several hundreds of years, the government conserved many of the traditional seeds, which are being conserved at National Genebank at the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources. If they had not done this, we could have lost all that diversity. I’m happy that around 7.6 million varieties are conserved across 1,750 gene banks worldwide, with about 11% of this total conserved within CGIAR genebanks, and is available for free exchange under the Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA). Now we need to make these conserved varieties available to farmers to give them more options to adapt to changing growing conditions.
Seed varieties displayed at the CBD. Photo: K. Brown
Q: Why is the strategic plan CBD 2011-2020 important?
A: The CBD has three main objectives: biodiversity conservation, the sustainable use of biodiversity resources and the fair and equal sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources.
An urgent priority is to implement the third component. Several years have now passed since the CBD came into force and now the Nagoya Protocol is waiting to come into force and be implemented. Meanwhile many of the same parties to the CBD have also ratified the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources. The International Treaty has basically the same objectives as the CBD, but focuses on establishing a multilateral system of access and benefit sharing as a way of advancing them.
The government of the Netherlands is supporting capacity building efforts for implementing the International Treaty. The Japanese government has pledged a lot of support for capacity building for domestic implementation of the Treaty and the ratification of the Nagoya Protocol. These processes can be slow as people are not very clear on how to implement these agreements. This is one area where Treaty and the CBD Secretariat are already active, with agencies like Bioversity International and GIZ providing technical support to national teams investigating options for national implementation, but more needs to be done.
Further reports to follow from our scientists over in Hyderabad. Find out more about Bioversity International’s participation at the UN Conference on Biodiversity here.
Interview by guest blogger Kara Brown.
 | Bioversity International is a member of the CGIAR consortium |
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This work by Bioversity International is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. |
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