"This book is a review of the current scientific knowledge that underpins seed banking, a technology which plays a key role in the conservation of both domesticated and non-domesticated plant speices..."--Publisher description.

Farmers and gardeners have long appreciated a wide variety of plants and have nurtured them for meals, healing, and exchange. But diversity too often has been surrendered to monocultures of fields and spirits, predisposing much of modern agriculture to uniformity and, consequently, vulnerability. Today it is primarily at the individual level—such as growing and saving a strange old bean variety or a curious-looking gourd—that any lasting conservation actually takes place. As scientists grapple with the erosion of genetic diversity of crops and their wild relatives, old-timey farmers and gardeners continue to save, propagate, and pass on folk varieties and heirloom seeds. Virginia Nazarea focuses on the role of these seedsavers in the perpetuation of diversity. She thoughtfully examines the framework of scientific conservation and argues for the merits of everyday conservation—one that is beyond programmatic design. Whether considering small-scale rice and sweet potato farmers in the Philippines or participants in the Southern Seed Legacy and Introduced Germplasm from Vietnam in the American South, she explores roads not necessarily less traveled but certainly less recognized in the conservation of biodiversity. Through characters and stories that offer a wealth of insights about human nature and society, Heirloom Seeds and Their Keepers helps readers more fully understand why biodiversity persists when there are so many pressures for it not to. The key, Nazarea explains, is in the sovereign spaces seedsavers inhabit and create, where memories counter a culture of forgetting and abandonment engendered by modernity. A book about theory as much as practice, it profiles these individuals, who march to their own beat in a world where diversity is increasingly devalued as the predictability of mass production becomes the norm. Heirloom Seeds and Their Keepers offers a much-needed, scientifically researched perspective on the contribution of seedsaving that illustrates its critical significance to the preservation of both cultural knowledge and crop diversity around the world. It opens new conversations between anthropology and biology, and between researchers and practitioners, as it honors conservation as a way of life.

As biological diversity continues to shrink at an alarming rate, the loss of plant species poses a threat seemingly less visible than the loss of animals but in many ways more critical. In this book, one of America's leading ethnobotanists warns about our loss of natural vegetation and plant diversity while providing insights into traditional Native agricultural practices in the Americas. Gary Paul Nabhan here reveals the rich diversity of plants found in tropical forests and their contribution to modern crops, then tells how this diversity is being lost to agriculture and lumbering. He then relates "local parables" of Native American agriculture—from wild rice in the Great Lakes region to wild gourds in Florida—that convey the urgency of this situation and demonstrate the need for saving the seeds of endangered plants. Nabhan stresses the need for maintaining a wide gene pool, not only for the survival of these species but also for the preservation of genetic strains that can help scientists breed more resilient varieties of other plants. Enduring Seeds is a book that no one concerned with our environment can afford to ignore. It clearly shows us that, as agribusiness increasingly limits the food on our table, a richer harvest can be had by preserving ancient ways. This edition features a new foreword by Miguel Altieri, one of today's leading spokesmen for sustainable agriculture and the preservation of indigenous farming methods.

A pamphlet describing the contents of the CIMMYT germplasm bank, the conditions of their storage and management, and how to obtain germplasm from the bank.

Faced with widespread and devastating loss of biodiversity in wild habitats, scientists have developed innovative strategies for studying and protecting targeted plant and animal species in "off-site" facilities such as botanic gardens and zoos. Such ex situ work is an increasingly important component of conservation and restoration efforts. Ex Situ Plant Conservation, edited by Edward O. Guerrant Jr., Kayri Havens, and Mike Maunder, is the first book to address integrated plant conservation strategies and to examine the scientific, technical, and strategic bases of the ex situ approach. The book examines where and how ex situ investment can best support in situ conservation. Ex Situ Plant Conservation outlines the role, value, and limits of ex situ conservation as well as updating best management practices for the field, and is an invaluable resource for plant conservation practitioners at botanic gardens, zoos, and other conservation organizations; students and faculty in conservation biology and related fields; managers of protected areas and other public and private lands; and policymakers and members of the international community concerned with species conservation.

Seed storage behaviour. Types mof seed collections. Conditions for long-term storage. Conditions for medium-term storage. Drying seed and determining moisture content. Hemetic containers. The size of acessions and the volume of the coldroom. Eletricity supply and maintaining gene bank services in emergency. Temporary or alternative seed storage facilities. Monitoring gene bank environments. Air-lock. Ancillary facilities. Safety precautions. Selecktion of site.

The book is designed to provide a review on the methods and current status of conservation of the tropical plant species. It will also provide the information on the richness of the tropical plant diversity, the need to conserve, and the potential utilization of the genetic resources. Future perspectives of conservation of tropical species will be discussed. Besides being useful to researchers and graduate students in the field, we hope to create a reference for a much wider audience who are interested in conservation of tropical plant diversity.

The recent development of ideas on biodiversity conservation was already being considered almost three-quarters of a century ago for crop plants and the wild species related to them, by the Russian geneticist N.!. Vavilov. He was undoubtedly the first scientist to understand the impor tance for humankind of conserving for utilization the genetic diversity of our ancient crop plants and their wild relatives from their centres of diversity. His collections showed various traits of adaptation to environ mental extremes and biotypes of crop diseases and pests which were unknown to most plant breeders in the first quarter of the twentieth cen tury. Later, in the 1940s-1960s scientists began to realize that the pool of genetic diversity known to Vavilov and his colleagues was beginning to disappear. Through the replacement of the old, primitive and highly diverse land races by uniform modem varieties created by plant breed ers, the crop gene pool was being eroded. The genetic diversity of wild species was equally being threatened by human activities: over-exploita tion, habitat destruction or fragmentation, competition resulting from the introduction of alien species or varieties, changes and intensification of land use, environmental pollution and possible climate change.

Nearly 700 species of plants may become extinct by the year 2000. Faced with this overwhelming prospect, plant conservationists must take advantage of every technique available. This unique work summarizes our current knowledge of the genetics and population biology of rare plants, and integrates it with practical conservation recommendations. It features discussions on the distribution and significance of genetic variation, management and evaluation of rare plant germplasm, and conservation strategies for genetic diversity. Case studies focusing on specific problems offer important insights for today's challenges in rare plant conservation.

Papers presented at the National Seminar on Conservation and Utilization of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, held at Bhubaneswar during 4-6 December 2001; in Indian context.