Abstract
The global biodiversity crisis in agriculture is overlooked compared with that in wild systems. This must change if we are to safeguard domesticated plant diversity and meet global sustainable development and biodiversity goals. In this Perspective, we review tools developed through decades of wild biodiversity conservation and provide a framework for adapting and applying these for agrobiodiversity conservation. We focus on challenges and solutions around monitoring the status of agrobiodiversity, prioritizing its conservation, conserving it in situ and financing to ensure these actions can be maintained long term. Conserving global agrobiodiversity supports wider conservation efforts and is crucial for achieving food security, climate resilience and a sustainable future.
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Acknowledgements
This article is a result of the conference ‘Avoiding Plant Blindness in Conservation and 30×30 Commitments’ held at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Jodrell Laboratory, on 22–23 February 2023. We acknowledge the participation and intellectual contribution of all attendees and thank T. Brooks for his insightful comments and contributions to developing this paper. This work was supported by the UK Department of Food, Rural Affairs, and Agriculture (Defra) Global Centre on Biodiversity for Climate under the project ‘Realising the potential of plant biodiversity as nature-based solutions on African biodiversity hotspots: supporting sustainable bioresource management practices’. A.A. acknowledges further financial support from the Swedish Research Council (2019-05191), the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research MISTRA (Project BioPath) and the Kew Foundation. S.P. acknowledges financial support from Calleva Foundation (project ‘Accelerated Diversification for Climate Resilient Agriculture’). R.P.O. thanks the CNPq, Brazil for the grant received (PQ). The funding bodies of this work had no influence on the research presented here. The ideas and views expressed do not necessarily represent those of the author’s organizations or funders.
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S.J. and K.F.V.A.E. drafted the paper. S.J., K.F.V.A.E., C.T., O.M.G., I.D. and J.S.B secured funding. K.F.V.A.E. provided project management, and was supported by S.J., C.T. and O.M.G. to coordinate the conference. S.J., C.T., M.S.G., K.D.-A., M.D., A.G.D., E.N.L., M.R., R.J.S., C.W. and J.S.B. led workshops. S.J., K.F.V.A.E., C.T., M.S.G., T.S., W.A., C.A., A.A., L.B., G.C., C. Cockel, D.C., C. Cowell, R.D., S.D., A.D., K.D.-A., M.D., A.G.D., M.E.D., B.M.E., S.F., W.H., K.I., S.K.J., B.B.K., A.L., F.K.S.L., E.L., C.M.-R., F.N., E.N.L., R.P.O., A.O.-A., S.P., J.F.P., M.R., P.R., F.J.S., R.J.S., P.C.S., A.C.T., J.E.V., O.W., C.W., C.T.Y., O.M.G., I.D. and J.S.B. contributed through workshop discussions at the conference, and development of ideas and arguments through feedback during the writing process.
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Jago, S., Elliott, K.F.V.A., Tovar, C. et al. Adapting wild biodiversity conservation approaches to conserve agrobiodiversity. Nat Sustain (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01427-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01427-2
