| Popis: |
There is growing worldwide realization that safeguarding the planet’s biodiversity is fundamental for agricultural production, food security and environmental conservation. Genetic resources, because of their diversity, are the cornerstone of sustainable development, as they offer the building blocks needed to adapt to changing environments and challenges, such as climatic change and increased human pressure on the available natural resources (Gladis 2003). Many subsistence farmers, especially in environments where high-yielding crop and livestock varieties do not prosper, rely on a wide range of crop and livestock types. This diversity, however, is disappearing at an alarming rate and 75 per cent of today’s food is generated from just 12 plants and five animal species. Only 200 out of 10,000 edible plant species are used by humans, and only three plants — rice, maize and wheat — contribute nearly 60 per cent of the calories and proteins obtained by humans from plants. Since the 1900s, farmers have replaced their many well-adapted local crop varieties with genetically uniform, high-yield varieties. Consequently, the small-scale and diverse food production systems that conserve crop varieties and animal breeds have been marginalized. Genetic erosion is one of the most alarming threats to world food security. Biodiversity is the arbiter of the quality of human life, and the risk of species loss (Groombridge and Jenkins 2002) undermines the very sense of ‘sustainable development’, limits options of the future and robs humanity of a key resource base for survival. |
