Basic food crops dangerously vulnerable

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WWF

Published May 22, 2008 08:51 AM

Basic food crops dangerously vulnerable

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In the case of wheat, for instance, as a deadly new strain of Black

Stem Rust devastates harvests across Africa and Arabia, and threatens

the staple food supply of a billion people from Egypt to Pakistan, the

areas where potentially crop and life-saving remnant wild wheat

relatives grow are only minimally protected.

 

“Our basic food plants have always been vulnerable to attack from new

strains of disease or pests and the result is often mass hunger and

starvation, as anyone who remembers their school history of the Irish

Potato Famine will know,†said Liza Higgins-Zogib, Manager of People

and Conservation at WWF International.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“In more recent times we have avoided similar collapses in the

production when disease strikes essential foodstuffs like wheat by

developing new commercial varieties from naturally resistant wild

relatives.â€

 

“Unfortunately the natural habitat of most of the wild or traditional

descendents of our modern food plants is without legal and physical

protection, leaving them at risk.â€

 

Also at risk are the indigenous and traditional peoples who are

critical parts of the landscapes associated with crop wild relatives,

who are losing their lands and cultural practices — which puts

humanity's food at even further risk.

 

Wheat and barley originated in an arc mainly to the north of the

Fertile Crescent (modern day Iraq) where their domestication was

linked with the development by early Mesopotamian civilizations of

cities, irrigation and laws. Ecoregions such as the Eastern Anatolian

montane steppe, where wheat's wild relatives remain, now combine low

levels of critical habitat in protected areas (3.14 per cent) with

alarming levels of habitat loss (55.6 per cent).

 

The map Centres of food crop diversity threatened and under protected

correlates updated protected area statistics with key Crop Wild

Relative (CWR) areas and draws on a study conducted by WWF,

environmental research group Equilibrium and the School of Biosciences

at the University of Birmingham, published as Food Stores: Using

protected areas to secure crop genetic diversity in 2006.

 

Other crops where levels of protection for remnant crop wild relatives

fall below five percent include rice varieties in Bangladesh,

homelands for lentils, peas, grapes and almonds, and areas of Spain

where a protected area ratio of 4.6% significant for wild olive

relatives is mismatched by the loss of almost three quarters of all

habitat.

 

The Americas fare slightly better, but important areas of

agrobiodiversity including areas where corn originated and important

to wild relatives of the potato are less than 10 % protected.

 

“The wild relatives of commercial crops provide a critical reserve of

genes that are regularly needed to strengthen and adapt their modern

domestic cousins in a changing world,†Higgins-Zogib said.

 

“We already have reserves and national parks to protect charismatic

species like pandas and tigers, and to preserve outstanding areas of

natural beauty. It is now time to offer protection to the equally

valuable wild and traditional relatives of the plants that feed the

world like rice, wheat and potatoes.

 

 

“And because people are part of landscapes too, we urge

conservationists and governments thinking of new protected areas to

allow the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples —

particularly the women who have traditionally been the gardeners and

seedkeepers of their communities.â€

 

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