Rd October 2010 [a] Contents

Managing in protected areas is likely to require additional resources, particularly if the populations are to be monitored at the genetic level; it is therefore important to identify likely costs and ways of meeting these. Resources will be needed for additional monitoring to ensure that the management regime is actually benefiting target populations, but there may also be costs associated with specific management interventions. Assessment should look beyond costs to include potential beneficiaries, particularly amongst local communities. In cases where there are clearly accepted and understood benefits in maintaining agricultural biodiversity, local people can sometimes offset a substantial amount of the costs through voluntary conservation and monitoring efforts.

Although there are many protected areas without fully up-to-date and well implemented management plans, most areas are managed in accordance with some form of planning document and many include a variety of zones in which different management objectives are followed. The design of crop genetic diversity conservation areas involves consideration of various factors, such as structure, size, whether a single large or multiple smaller sites are best for the target taxon, the use of corridors, reserve shape, environmental heterogeneity and potential user communities. Individual species have specific design requirements. Practical experience of collecting CWR for ex situ conservation has shown, for example, that CWR often exist in small, isolated populations; therefore, sites with the largest populations should be selected and efforts taken in the management plans to encourage maintenance of as large a CWR population as possible. Practical examples of how genetic reserves were established for priority CWR species in Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories can be found in Al-Atawneh et al (2008). As many CWR are associated with more disturbed habitats than plant species associated with climax vegetation, the management regime may necessitate conserving disturbance which results in the desired patchwork of diverse habitats. For the site management of the genetic reserves established to conserve CWR species in Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories, an appropriate level of grazing was required, though significant experimentation was needed before the appropriate level was identified (Al-Atawneh et al, 2008).

The establishment and management of protected areas for their crop genetic diversity is not an end in itself. Because this type of conservation focuses explicitly on socio-economically important species, there is a direct link between genetic conservation and sustainable utilisation. As a result, protected area managers will need to place greater emphasis on the requirements of stakeholders – the general public, and professional and traditional users of the site. There are no simple formulaic methods of achieving agreement about natural resource use however, and each protected area and each community needs to be approached individually.

Ensuring a safety back-up to ensure the conservation of the germplasm in the protected area, particularly in light of projected climatic changes and their potential impact on the protected area networks, can be ensured by germplasm being sampled and deposited in appropriate ex situ collections. Although both ex situ and in situ techniques have their advantages and disadvantages they should not be seen as alternatives or in opposition to one another.

Protected areas can play an important role in the in situ conservation of crop genetic diversity. Although the links between food security and protected areas, or even the links between the biodiversity and agrobiodiversity communities, have rarely been made explicit, our research demonstrates that protected areas are important refugia for agrobiodiversity and as such help maintain agricultural systems and food security. It seems obvious that in time of ecosystem instability that biodiversity and agrobiodiversity communities should work together and cooperation over crop genetic diversity conservation is a good means of drawing the two communities together for mutual benefit. Just as botanic gardens in countries with colder climates often stimulate interest amongst the general public by including specimens of crops to show what a banana, coffee or rice plant looks like, so protected area managers can raise the profile of their sites by paying particular attention to native CWR species and advertising their presence to the potential user communities. Many protected areas also encompass cultivated lands and increasing recognition of the social, environmental and economic value of landraces adds an important dimension to the values of these areas.

** Where crop genetic diversity and existing protected areas coincide, protected areas offer the most practical way forward for conserving a broad range of CWR diversity, which cannot be substituted with ex situ conservation.

** The role of protected areas in conserving crop genetic diversity could be greatly increased by raising awareness within protected area organisations.

** The promotion of the conservation of crop genetic diversity within existing protected areas may further enhance the public perception of protected areas and help to ensure longer term site security.

** There are already a few protected areas which are being managed specifically to retain landraces and CWR and there are many more protected areas that are known to contain populations essential to the conservation of plant genetic resources.
Overall, the estimated annual turnover of the commercial seed industry in OECD countries is US$13 billion (FAO, 1998) and the total commercial world seed market is assessed at approximately US$6000 million (International Seed Federation, 2009). If just a fraction of this sum was used to protect the resources breeders rely on to improve commercial seeds, and a small proportion of this went to the protected areas which conserve important crop genetic resources, many of the world’s most under-resourced protected areas could receive a considerable boost to their budgets and thus their capacity for effective management.
[b]References

Al-Atawneh, N., Amri, A., Assi, R. and Maxted, N. (2008) Management plans for promoting in situ conservation of local agrobiodiversity in the West Asia centre of plant diversity, In: Maxted, N., Ford-Lloyd, B.V., Kell, S.P., Iriondo, J., Dulloo, E. and Turok, J. (eds.) Crop Wild Relative Conservation and Use. Pp. 338-361. CAB International, Wallingford

Yildiray Lise and Sue Stolton

Cereals such as wheat and barley seem to have originated in or near woodlands and their wild progenitors can still be found in the oak forest belt of Southeastern Anatolia and the pine, beech and Cilician fir forests of southern Anatolia. Forests once covered large parts of Turkey, but centuries of use and exploitation have reduced the area of large intact forest to some 12 per cent of the land area, mainly in the major mountain ranges in the north and south. Unfortunately these remaining forests receive little protection. Turkey has at least 12 different protected area categories covering more than 5.2 per cent of its landmass (Lise, 2008); however the traditional focus of management is recreational, often to the detriment of ecological integrity.

1. 
   Southeast Anatolia: Ceylanpınar State Farm for conservation of wild wheat, barley, lentil and chickpea germplasm (a total of six reserves)
   
2. 
   Northwestern Aegean Region: Kazdagi National Park, which is rich in fruit progenitor, nut, ornamental and forest species (a total of 13 reserves)
   
3. 
   Central Southern Anatolia: Bolkar Mountains, which lie at the extreme geographical limits of several species (a total of five reserves).
   

Following the publication of the national plan, an additional six reserves were established in Lakes Region of Turkey (southwestern Anatolia) to protect 20 species (Karagöz, 2008).

A national plan for in situ gene conservation has been prepared. The target species in the plan include 57 agricultural plants (including field crops and fruit, vegetable, medicinal and aromatic species), 13 landraces and 25 forest tree species (Kaya et al, 1998).

Açıkgöz, N. Sabancı, C. O. and Cinsoym, A. S. (1998) Ecogeography and distribution of wild legumes in Turkey. In: Zencirci, N. Kaya, Z. Anikster, Y. and Adams, W. T. (eds); The Proceedings of International Symposium on In Situ Conservation of Plant Genetic Diversity, Central Research Institute for Field Crops, Turkey

Özhatay, N., Kültür, Ş. and Aslan, S. (2009) Check-list of Additional Taxa to the Supplement Flora of Turkey IV, Turk J Bot 33,191-226