Side Event

Launch of the CWR Global Portal: Towards a Global Information System on Wild Relatives of Crops

Organizer
United Nations Environment Programme

Date and Time
20 May 2008 18:15 - 19:45

Meeting
Ninth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 9)

The in situ conservation and use of wild relatives of crops (CWR) is fundamental for sustainable agricultural development. CWR can contribute genetic traits to crops that confer resistance to pests and diseases and enable sustained crop productivity under changing environmental conditions. CWR must be conserved in situ, – in nature – to allow the continuation of evolutionary processes that create and sustain those traits. As such, CWR represent a principal link between agriculture and wild biodiversity. Today, natural populations of CWR are at risk due to habitat loss, degradation, fragmentation and their future is threatened by climate change. Ensuring their conservation and use has been challenging because information about CWR, and their status, is dispersed and hard to find. Over the past four years, the UNEP/GEF project entitled “In situ Conservation of Crop Wild Relatives through Enhanced Information Management and Field Application” with complementary funding from the German BMZ, has been executed by Bioversity International in collaboration with five partner countries: Armenia, Bolivia, Madagascar, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan to address these challenges. The project has developed a unique web-based portal that allows dispersed information on the identity, status distribution and potential use of CWR, held by individual countries, international agencies and other institutions, to be brought together and used to support conservation decision-making at national and global level. The CWR Global Portal will be launched at an event at COP 9 with the participation of the partner countries and the international partners including BGCI, BLE, FAO, IUCN, and UNEP-WCMC. A live demonstration of the portal will show users how they can access information on CWR from around the world, and other countries and organizations will be invited to participate in this important undertaking.