Four collections of important crop diversity. Four disasters. Four essential lessons for the future.

• In September, Typhoon Xangsane pushed a wall of water and mud through the national genebank of the Philippines, sheared off the top half of the banana trees, and literally washed away other crops in the genebank's field collections. Physical facilities were extensively damaged. While all of the collections were obviously of national importance, crop experts working with the Trust consider the banana, sweet potato, taro,Vigna and pigeon pea collections as being of global, not just national significance.

• In Afghanistan, mujahedeen fighters destroyed the national seed collection in Kabul in 1992. We know that new collections were made and quietly hidden in a house in Jalalabad, but in the chaos of the next war these collections fell victim to looters who just wanted the plastic bottles in which the seeds were stored. Among the native crops whose important diversity was lost - wheat. A local loss, therefore, with global implications.
• Abu Ghraib in Iraq is infamous for incidents that took place at the prison there. Prior to this, however, it was better known to the scientific community as the site of Iraq's national genebank. During the fighting, staff fled and looters stripped the building of everything - "doors, windows, electric cables pulled out of walls, and of course bottles and seed gone," according to William Erskine of ICARDA. The seed collections were completely lost. Iraq, you may know, has an ancient association with agriculture and is a center of diversity for such crops as wheat, barley, rye, lentil, and grape, making the loss of this collection especially tragic.
• Ethnic unrest in the Solomon Islands in 2000 led to the torching of the aptly named Dodo Creek Research Station in Guadalcanal, holding unique collections of taro, cocoyam, yam and cassava, staple crops especially among the poor in the Pacific islands.

Storm Clouds and Storm Troopers

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which publishes a World Disasters Report annually, calculates that natural disasters increased in number by two-thirds between 1997 and 2003. Climatologists expect global warming to trigger more and greater weather-related disasters. A preliminary trend line is already evident.

Time trend of natural disasters 1975-2005

It's hard to believe, but the number of wars "in progress" actually declined during the last decade, according to the Human Security Report. But, peace has hardly broken out. Valuable diversity remains in dangerous places.

Threats to crop diversity will not disappear. The question is whether and how we will protect against them.

First the Pain, Now the Gain

What lessons can we derive from these and other genebank tragedy stories, and from continued and rising threats to diversity?

First, the genebanks cited above were, if anything, working in too much isolation. Their fate indicates the need for a coordinated and cooperative system for conserving crop diversity. Ad hoc approaches with each country acting "on its own," work only for the privileged and the lucky.

Second, collections must be duplicated in a "safe" facility meeting international standards. Failure to have a back-up copy of unique collections is a game of biological Russian roulette. The Seed Vault being built in Svalbard by the Norwegians will provide an extra, robust level of security for genebank collections.

Third, political disputes over access and rhetoric about biopiracy must yield to the more fundamental need of securing the collections. In the past, some collections have not been safety duplicated because of fears that another country or company might get its hands on them. None of the collections cited above were fully duplicated. Their subsequent loss now ensures that no one - even the owners - will derive any future benefits. The new International Treaty provides an agreed legal framework for transferring genetic resources and an opportunity for defusing a damaging situation that has existed for too long.

Fourth, tragedies striking different facilities in different parts of the world serve as a stark reminder that no conservation method or facility is perfect or risk-free. This is one reason that coordination, planning and oversight are necessary to "guarantee" the survival and availability of crop diversity in perpetuity. Approaches involving both genebanks and the continued cultivation of diverse varieties are positive, but the latter is no substitute for the former because the continued existence of this diversity - dependent as it is on the care exercised by millions of farmer and gardener "custodians" - is unavoidably tenuous over time and because access to it by breeders and researchers is nearly impossible.

The Global Crop Diversity Trust has made an emergency grant to the national genebank in the Philippines targeted towards the rescue of the crop collections there of greatest global importance. No one wants to hop from one disaster to the next, however. The long-term challenge we all face - doubly so at the Trust - is to build a system less vulnerable to war and natural disasters.