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| European Seed Conservation | |
| Biodiversity provides millions of people with livelihoods, helps to ensure food, shelter, energy, security, and is a rich source of both traditional medicines and modern pharmaceuticals. Ensconet (European Native Seed COnservation NETwork) took its first steps last November after a long preparation process. The network, headed by the Millennium Seed Bank (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew), is composed of 19 institutes from 12 European countries, covering 5 of the 6 major bio-geographical regions of Europe. It aims to co-ordinate and enhance activities of several European seed banks, botanical gardens or institutes interested in seed conservation, in order to reduce the duplication of effort and establish common protocols in establishing and improving technologies for seed collecting, maintenance, data management and dissemination. The first annual meeting took place at the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania, in Crete on June 13-19, 2005. Seed banks such as the ones coordinated by Ensconet have an important role to play by ensuring that precious plant diversity is available for use in habitat restoration, sustainable development, or recovery programs. The next annual meeting in 2006 will be organized by the Botanic Garden of the University of Valencia. The Italian representatives of Esconet are: Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali (C. Bonomi) also for the 2009 reunion; Università di Pavia (G. Rossi); Università di Pisa (G. Bedini). “AlphaGalileo” www.alphagalileo.org For further information contact: Amparo Amblar, Ensconet Dissemination Group, Valencia Tel: 0034 96 315 68 36 www.ensconet.com, www.jardibotanic.org, www.trentinocultura.netE-mail: s.alton@rbgkew.org.uk |
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