[NAFEX] Pavlovsk seed bank faces destruction

rob hamilton lostman_amiga at yahoo.com
Mon Aug 30 22:37:17 EDT 2010


more info...



Researchers Fight To Save Fruits Of Their Labor
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129499099

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________________________________
From: dylanford <dylanford at optonline.net>
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wed, August 11, 2010 8:51:57 PM
Subject: [NAFEX] Pavlovsk seed bank faces destruction

 
 
Pavlovsk seed bank faces destruction
>'Priceless collection' in Russia was    never registered so is therefore 
>worthless and does not officially exist, say    developers
> 
>Twelve Russian scientists famously chose to starve to death rather than eat    
>the unique collection of seeds and plants they were    protecting for humanity 
>during the 900-day siege of Leningrad in the second    world war. But the 
>world's first global seed bank now faces destruction once    more, to make way 
>for a private housing estate.
>The fate of the Pavlovsk agricultural station outside St Petersburg will be    
>decided in the courts this week. If, as expected, the case goes against it    
>then the collection of plants built up over 85 years could be destroyed within    
>months.
>At stake, say Russian    and British campaigners for the station, is not just 
>scientific history    but one of the world's largest collection of strawberries, 
>blackcurrants,    apples and cherries. Pavlovsk contains more than 5,000 
>varieties of seeds and    berries from dozens of countries, including more than 
>100 varieties each of    gooseberries and raspberries.
>More than 90% of the plants are found in no other research collection or    seed 
>bank. Its seeds and berries are thought to possess traits that could be    
>crucial to maintaining productive fruit harvests in many parts of the world as    
>climate change and a rising tide of disease, pests and drought weaken the    
>varieties farmers now grow. As it is predominantly a field collection,    
>Pavlovsk cannot be moved. Experts estimate that even if another site were    
>available nearby, it would take many years to relocate the plants.
>In what appears Kafkaesque logic, the property developers argue that    because 
>the station contains a "priceless collection", no monetary value can    be 
>assigned to it and so it is worthless. In another nod to Kafka, the    
>government's federal fund of residential real estate development has argued    
>that the collection was never registered and thus does not officially    exist.
>"It is a bitter irony that the single most deliberately destructive act    
>against crop diversity could be about to happen in the country that invented    
>the modern seed bank," said Cary Fowler, of the Global Crop Diversity Trust. 
>"Russia taught the world    about the importance of crop collections for the 
>future of agriculture. A    decision to destroy Pavlovsk would forever tarnish a 
>cause that generations of    Russian plant scientists have lived and, quite 
>literally, died, to    protect."
>The station was established in 1926 by Nikolai Vavilov, the man credited    with 
>creating the idea of seed banks as repositories of plant diversity that    could 
>be used to breed new varieties in response to threats to food    production. 
>During the siege of Leningrad, 12 scientists chose to starve while    protecting 
>the diversity amassed by Vavilov, even though the seeds of rice,    peas, corn 
>and wheat that they were protecting could have sustained them.    Vavilov died 
>of malnutrition in prison in 1943, having criticised the    anti-genetic 
>concepts of Trofim Lysenko. But Russia has since elevated him to    hero status.
>


      
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