'Plant Breeding: Sustaining the Future' Abstracts of the XVIth EUCARPIA Congress, Edinburgh, Scotland, 10-14 September 2001 DIVERSITY, SUSTAINABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT: IMPROVING THE CONSERVATION AND USE OF PLANT GENETIC RESOURCES T. HODGKIN, J. TUROK, J.M.M. ENGELS, C. HOOGENDOORN  International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, Maccarese, Rome, Italy

The aims of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which came into force in 1993, include not only conservation but also sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits associated with biodiversity. This recognition of the need to link maintenance with use of genetic diversity, as well as with social benefits deriving from that use, was also reflected in the FAO Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which was agreed by over 150 countries in 1996. The importance now given by the world to the sound management of diversity within agricultural and forestry production systems was confirmed by the development of a programme of work on managing agrobiodiversity within the framework of the CBD (in 2000) and, through FAO, of an agreed draft International Undertaking on Genetic Resources.

At the same time, developments in molecular genetics and information management over the last 10-15 years are having a major effect on plant genetic resources work. Important advances are being made in our knowledge of the amount and distribution of diversity, of the nature of variation for useful traits, and of the ways in which useful variation might be detected in diverse plant populations. New developments have also occurred in the ways in which we can collate, manage and access information, both locally and internationally, using the Internet to identify useful sources of variation throughout the world, and linking geographic analysis with genetic studies to understand and make optimum use of observed patterns of diversity. The conservation agenda for plant genetic resources has also expanded and now encompasses a recognition of the importance of on-farm conservation and of working with a wide range of crops and species, many of which have been previously neglected.

In this paper we propose to consider ways in which these changes support the improved conservation and use of plant genetic resources in Europe, to discuss whether European plant breeders are taking full advantage of the opportunities that now exist for sustaining improvement through the optimum use of diversity, and to explore what they can contribute to the global conservation effort.