Russia will "scrutinize" Pavlovsk decision

Dmitry Medvedev, President of the Russian Federation, announced yesterday on Twitter that he had "received the Civic Chamber's appeal over the Pavlov Experimental Station. Gave the instruction for this issue to be scrutinised."

Emile Frison, Director General of Bioversity International, welcomed this news.

"This shows that the Russians are listening, and that they are ready to reconsider the decision rather than let the collection at the Pavlovsk Experiment Station be destroyed for housing."

Bioversity International and the Global Crop Diversity Trust have been campaigning hard to get ordinary people and those with an expert interest in the fruit and berry genebank to express their misgivings to the Russian Federation.

"The pressure seems to be having an effect," said Frison.

The Kremlin started tweeting on 23 June 2010 and currently has almost 40,000 followers in English and more than 60,000 in Russian.

Note: An online petition is available with information about how to contact the Russian government.