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By Weng Bolinas
Press Statement on International Biodiversity
Day
From Haribon Foundation
As we mark this year’s International
Biodiversity Day with the theme “Biodiversity and Agriculture”,
we witness the erosion of the world’s biologically diverse genetic
resources through biotechnology, natural disasters, land degradation
and climate change.
A global effort aimed at conserving important
crops from all over the world threatened with extinction is now the
focus of United Nations and the Global Crop Diversity Trust with an
infusion of $37.5 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
and the Norway government.
The goal is to preserve seed and plant varieties
by growing seed stocks and storing them properly in order to
safeguard the world’s food supply.
In the Philippines at the International Rice
Research Institute (IRRI), the world’s largest rice seedbank
stores 100,000 varieties of rice, representing the world’s largest
and most important collection in the world.
About 3 billion of the earth’s population
depend on rice, thus rice is the single most significant crop.
Farmers traditionally conserve seeds for replanting. Unfortunately,
government policies, with the lobby of transnational corporations,
favor the promotion of new seed varieties that cannot be replanted
thus enslaving farmers into buying new seeds for every cropping
season.
IRRI’s Green Revolution in the early 1970’s
wiped out thousands of the world’s traditional rice varieties with
the introduction of new rice seeds that are dependent on
fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and other chemical inputs.
With burgeoning world population and decreasing
food supplies, the global trust on seed conservation should now
focus on saving endemic, traditional and native varieties that
survive and thrive better in local conditions.
We have indigenous genetic resources that are
naturally resistant to drought, saltwater intrusion and pests.
This is also true for other crop varieties and
even tree species. While new varieties may yield higher harvests,
erosion of genetic resources greatly compromises our capacity for
survival. Biological diversity is the foundation of the evolutionary
process.
Genetic resources contained in the populations
and genes of thousands of plant species globally are unique and
irreplaceable. Encoded in these genes are adaptation mechanisms that
enable us to cope with the changes in our environment.
We call on the Philippine government and world
leaders to adopt policies that strengthen the conservation of our
biological diversity. We need to establish more seed banks that
contain important endemic varieties now threatened at disturbing
scales.
The Doomsday Arctic Vault is one concrete step,
and in the Philippines, we need to support community efforts such as
the community rice registries established by farmers, seed banks put
up by sustainable agriculture advocates and endemic tree nurseries
cultivated by rainforestation champions.
Biological diversity guarantees our survival, no
ifs, no buts.
For more information please contact:
Anabelle Plantilla, Executive Director,
434-4642/ 911-6089, director@haribon.org.ph
Rowena Bolinas, Advocacy Unit, (0922) 815-1938,
rainforestation@haribon.org.ph
Haribon Foundation invites everyone to the
International Biodiversity Day on May 19-25, 2008 at PAWB Grounds (Ninoy
Aquino Parks & Wildlife).
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