Earth Equity News

International Efforts Mobilized to Save Russian Rare Plant Preserve. By Fred Pearce, YaleEnviro360, September 20, 2010. "In the early 20th century, Russian botanist Nikolai Vavilov created a preserve outside St. Petersburg that today contains one of the world's largest collections of rare seeds and crops. Now, scientists and conservationists are waging an international campaign to save the reserve's fields from being bulldozed for housingdevelopment…The Pavlovsk Research Station, part of the N.I. Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry, houses one of the world's largest collections of seeds and planted crops, roughly 90 percent of which are found in no other scientific collections in the world. The station's inventory includes almost a thousand types of strawberries from more than 40 countries; a similar number of black currant varieties from 30 countries, including North America, Europe and the Far East; 600 apple types collected from 35 countries; and more than a hundred varieties each of gooseberries, cherries, plums, red currants, and raspberries. More than half of the black currant varieties grown in Russia, the world's leading producer, were bred at Pavlovsk. Sales of black currants in Russia are valued at more than $400 million annually.

"News that the Pavlovsk station was threatened with a state land grab first emerged over the summer. However, what looked like a done deal has attracted a high-profile international campaign that could be on the verge of success -- just as the world's governments meet in Japan next month to celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity. Cary Fowler, an American conservationist who runs the Global Crop Diversity Trust in Rome, Italy, visited the station earlier this year. He says the loss of the collection would be 'the largest intentional, preventable loss of crop diversity in my lifetime.'"