Millenium Seedbank

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The Millennium Seedbank
The 1999 Student Lecture
Roger Smith, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
At Ness Botanic Gardens, May 11 1999
Sponsored by North West England and North Wales Branch of the Institute of Horticulture

Some reflections:
Roger Smith began by reviewing the prospects for plant biodiversity in the next millennium. We heard the familiar story of the increase in human population and the increasing pressure on the other species inhabiting this planet. Habitats are being destroyed and fragmented relentlessly, so that the extinction rate of species is running perhaps 10,000 times faster than the baseline rate. Habitat fragmentation compounds the effect of diminishing area because organisms are reproductively isolated in the remaining islands; the disruption of the breeding system increases the risk of extinction. Roger argued that the much publicized risk of loss of tropical rainforest is being addressed politically by the relief of debt in exchange for restrictions on further encroachment.

However, no such protection exists for species in the earth's drylands (although deserts constitute the main terrestrial biomes). Furthermore one third of the world's population lives in the drylands and these fragile ecosystems are particularly vulnerable. (The introduction of grazing animals has generally been disastrous from Arizona to the Sahel, and from the Sahara to Australia). In the past desert peoples have obtained sustenance from perhaps 7,000 plant species, contrasted with the 20 or so that provide 90% of a western diet. Roger argued that it is more likely that future dryland crops can be derived from already drought-adapted species than by the transfer of drought tolerance genes into our major crops. The new Millennium Seedbank will concentrate on dryland species for these reasons.

I found it curious that the seedbank should be justified in these pragmatic terms and that the emphasis will be on species with potential agronomic or pharmaceutical value, although existing crop varieties will be excluded. (As Roger said there are other laboratories that collect crop plants.) A secondary reason for collection will be when plants are unique to a particular area. Funding for the project has come from the National Lottery and commercial sponsors. I wonder whether the challenge by the Lottery to justify the project to Sun readers and business interests resulted in this dismally utilitarian policy. The plants are disappearing from their ancestral lands because of human pressure; can they only find a place in the seedbank if they promise to fill some future human need?

At times during the lecture my mind wandered to the news of the continuing agony in Kosovo. As well as pushing our own kind around the globe, we are displacing other species with scarcely a thought. Is it any more likely that those dryland plants ever make it back to the Sahel than that the world's refugees will return to their homes? Are we being disingenuous about the prospect, or is it more likely that the beneficiaries of such collections will be the biotech companies on their fishing expeditions for exotic genes to put into everyday crops? I know that there is the Rio agreement that is supposed to ensure that countries of origin are not robbed of rights to their genetic heritage. I am not confident that peasant societies will ever be treated equitably by transnational corporations, and I wish someone would think of the rights of the plants as well as the rights of governments. (A strange idea perhaps, but I am convinced that rights can be granted to other species in the same way that we grant them to members of our species with impaired or incompletely developed faculties)

I was glad to hear the the Seedbank is collecting seeds of the entire British flora. Of course it is a continuation of colonialism that we intervene in the ecological destiny of other countries after we have so thoroughly squeezed and displaced the indigenous species of our hemisphere. It is because we cannot share the agricultural proceeds of that massive ecological engineering that tropical ecosystems are under such pressure. We have moved beyond the thought that such inequities can ever be addressed. The gurus of postmodernism assure us that we will live from now on among the "shreds and shards" of history, including, I suppose collections of desiccated plant material. Is there a softer path? If we look to the east we see that Metasequoia and Ginkgo survived as living trees in the hands of contemplative people. Horticulture can appear to be a trivial hobby or diversion to western eyes; perhaps it holds the keys to the survival of plant biodiversity (and our own biological health).

Michael Knee

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The Millennium Seedbank The 1999 Student Lecture Roger Smith, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew At Ness Botanic Gardens, May 11 1999 Sponsored by North West England and North Wales Branch of the Institute of Horticulture
Some reflections: Roger Smith began by reviewing the prospects for plant biodiversity in the next millennium. We heard the familiar story of the increase in human population and the increasing pressure on the other species inhabiting this planet. Habitats are being destroyed and fragmented relentlessly, so that the extinction rate of species is running perhaps 10,000 times faster than the baseline rate. Habitat fragmentation compounds the effect of diminishing area because organisms are reproductively isolated in the remaining islands; the disruption of the breeding system increases the risk of extinction. Roger argued that the much publicized risk of loss of tropical rainforest is being addressed politically by the relief of debt in exchange for restrictions on further encroachment.
	However, no such protection exists for species in the earth's drylands (although deserts constitute the main terrestrial biomes). Furthermore one third of the world's population lives in the drylands and these fragile ecosystems are particularly vulnerable. (The introduction of grazing animals has generally been disastrous from Arizona to the Sahel, and from the Sahara to Australia). In the past desert peoples have obtained sustenance from perhaps 7,000 plant species, contrasted with the 20 or so that provide 90% of a western diet. Roger argued that it is more likely that future dryland crops can be derived from already drought-adapted species than by the transfer of drought tolerance genes into our major crops. The new Millennium Seedbank will concentrate on dryland species for these reasons.
	I found it curious that the seedbank should be justified in these pragmatic terms and that the emphasis will be on species with potential agronomic or pharmaceutical value, although existing crop varieties will be excluded. (As Roger said there are other laboratories that collect crop plants.) A secondary reason for collection will be when plants are unique to a particular area. Funding for the project has come from the National Lottery and commercial sponsors. I wonder whether the challenge by the Lottery to justify the project to Sun readers and business interests resulted in this dismally utilitarian policy. The plants are disappearing from their ancestral lands because of human pressure; can they only find a place in the seedbank if they promise to fill some future human need?
	At times during the lecture my mind wandered to the news of the continuing agony in Kosovo. As well as pushing our own kind around the globe, we are displacing other species with scarcely a thought. Is it any more likely that those dryland plants ever make it back to the Sahel than that the world's refugees will return to their homes? Are we being disingenuous about the prospect, or is it more likely that the beneficiaries of such collections will be the biotech companies on their fishing expeditions for exotic genes to put into everyday crops? I know that there is the Rio agreement that is supposed to ensure that countries of origin are not robbed of rights to their genetic heritage. I am not confident that peasant societies will ever be treated equitably by transnational corporations, and I wish someone would think of the rights of the plants as well as the rights of governments. (A strange idea perhaps, but I am convinced that rights can be granted to other species in the same way that we grant them to members of our species with impaired or incompletely developed faculties)
	I was glad to hear the the Seedbank is collecting seeds of the entire British flora. Of course it is a continuation of colonialism that we intervene in the ecological destiny of other countries after we have so thoroughly squeezed and displaced the indigenous species of our hemisphere. It is because we cannot share the agricultural proceeds of that massive ecological engineering that tropical ecosystems are under such pressure. We have moved beyond the thought that such inequities can ever be addressed. The gurus of postmodernism assure us that we will live from now on among the "shreds and shards" of history, including, I suppose collections of desiccated plant material. Is there a softer path? If we look to the east we see that Metasequoia and Ginkgo survived as living trees in the hands of contemplative people. Horticulture can appear to be a trivial hobby or diversion to western eyes; perhaps it holds the keys to the survival of plant biodiversity (and our own biological health). Michael Knee
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