Manual Boas Praticas CAP-LPN Edicao 2013_vr Digital(1) by papinto

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110224201859.htm

ScienceDaily (Feb. 24, 2011) — The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV) celebrated its third anniversary February 24 with the arrival of seeds for rare lima beans, blight-resistant cantaloupe, and progenitors of antioxidant-rich red tomatoes from Peru and the Galapagos Islands. The arrival of these collections, including many drought- and flood-resistant varieties, comes at a time when natural and human-made risks to agriculture have reinforced the critical need to secure all the world's food crop varieties.

The seeds arriving for safekeeping in the depths of an Arctic Mountain on Norway's remote Svalbard Archipelago included major deposits from genebanks maintained by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which is the largest single contributor of seeds to the Seed Vault.

Among the shipments is a Peruvian desert lima bean variety on the verge of extinction that was rescued by the Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), as well as other lima beans and relatives that grow in very dry or high-altitude locations. In total, CIAT's new shipments include 3,600 bean and forage samples collected from 94 countries, including Afghanistan, Nepal, Yemen, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.

Thousands of other cereal and bean varieties are being deposited by the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia is depositing forage crops. In Arizona, a Navajo ceremony was held to bless seeds of rare desert legumes from the University of Arizona before they began their long journey to Svalbard.

The new accessions, which will be added to the more than 600,000 already stored at Svalbard, include Agricultural Research Service-US Department of Agriculture (USDA) donations of soybeans collected by USDA researchers in China in the 1920s.

The USDA's shipment also includes seed collections of Solanum chilense and Solanum galapagense, wild relatives of the tomato whose genetic material was used by breeders at USDA and the University of California, Davis, to create tomatoes high in lycopene (an antioxidant) and beta-carotene (a source of Vitamin A). Other US shipments included seeds for important disease-resistant varieties of spinach, maize and cantaloupe.

"The optimism generated by the arrival of this incredible bumper crop of contributions is tempered by the threats that seem to emerge almost daily to seed collections around the world," said Cary Fowler, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which manages the Seed Vault in partnership with the Norwegian government and the Nordic Genetic Resources Center in Sweden. "As the threats to agriculture escalate, the importance of crop diversity grows."

A vivid example of some of the threats facing genebanks is when unrest in Egypt led to the looting of the Egyptian Desert Gene Bank in North Sinai. At the Desert Gene Bank, home to a prized collection of fruit and medicinal plants, looters stole equipment, destroyed the facility's cooling system, and ruined data that represented more than a decade worth of research. Meanwhile, the Global Crop Diversity Trust continues to fight plans to bulldoze the field collections at Russia's Pavlovsk Experimental Station, Europe's most important collection of fruits and berries, to make way for a housing development.

The Norwegian vault's third anniversary also brings reminders of natural threats to crop diversity and the food security it maintains.

Dr. Tony Gregson, a grain farmer from Victoria's Wimmera region, which has been alternately baked and flooded recently, accompanied Australia's first contribution to the seed vault, which has travelled further than any other seeds that have come to Svalbard.

Gregson, who sits on the board of the Crawford Fund, which supports international agriculture research, noted that virtually all Australian food crops come from outside the country. Coupled with the country's recent bouts of extreme weather, this makes Australia's farmers particularly sensitive to the importance of global crop diversity.

"Australian farmers have recently had to deal with both droughts and floods. This is not only terribly difficult for farming communities, but also affects food prices worldwide -- harsh reminders of the need to find crop varieties that will help adapt to these changing conditions," Gregson said.

While crop diversity is critical to adapting agriculture to climate change, it is also at risk of being lost due to rapid changes in climate and farm environments. For example, in February, the Trust announced a partnership with potato farmers in Peru to duplicate and deposit in the Seed Vault seeds from 1,500 varieties of potatoes still found in the Peruvian Andes, where some varieties are threatened by climate change. To keep pace with rapid changes in the global climate, the Global Crop Diversity Trust is also moving to collect wild relatives of domesticated drops. With the support of a US$50 million grant from the government of Norway, the Trust is participating in a global search to locate and conserve wild relatives of wheat, rice, bean, potato, barley, lentils, chickpea, and other essential food crops that could contain valuable genetic traits.

Cary Fowler commented, "As we celebrate the third anniversary of this remarkable Vault, it is thrilling to see yet another fantastically diverse shipment of seeds arrive. The scale of the challenges facing agriculture can be overwhelming, yet the knowledge that over 600,000 samples are now guaranteed to be safe and available to help farmers gives me great hope for our common future."

Naturlink, Ana Ganhão (14-02-11)

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Em Novembro de 2007 foi acordado entre a Direcção da ALFA e o Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e da Biodiversidade (ICNB) a elaboração da Checklist da Flora de Portugal (Continental, Açores e Madeira). Após quase 3 anos de trabalho, a ALFA – Associação Lusitana de Fitossociologia, apresentou publicamente a Checklist durante os VIII Encontros Internacionais de Fitossociologia.
Uma checklist de flora é, por definição, um trabalho inacabado. A nomenclatura, a taxonomia e a corologia botânicas estão, permanentemente, sujeitas a adições e correcções. Todos os anos são descobertos no território nacional novos taxa indígenas e naturalizados previamente descritos, reinterpretados muitos outros, ou corrigidos os seus nomes em acordo com as regras do ICBN (Código Internacional de Nomenclatura Botânica).

A bibliografia mais recente prova que o trabalho de descrição de novas espécies e taxa subespecífico em Portugal continental e insular não está terminado. Por conseguinte, a utilidade de uma checklist depende da sua contínua actualidade taxonómica e nomenclatural.
Tendo em consideração a velocidade a que são publicadas as novidades anteriormente referidas, é conveniente que uma checklist de flora seja actualizada em ciclos não superiores a um ano.
Gerir 4000 taxa, e muitos mais nomes, é uma tarefa exigente.

A ALFA disponibiliza a todos os interessados em colaborar nos trabalhos de actualização um endereço de e-mail dedicado (alfachecklist@gmail.com). As propostas de alteração aceites, e os respectivos autores, serão devidamente divulgados no site da ALFA. Fica assim feito o anúncio de uma etapa importante da história recente da botânica portuguesa e um pedido de colaboração que os botânicos, amadores ou profissionais, não devem (não podem) recusar.

Fonte: http://www3.uma.pt

Trabalho dos jardins de Kew e Missouri

Público on-line 29.12.2010 - 16:45 Por Helena Geraldes

Legumes, musgos, rosas e mesmo as ervas mais simples fazem parte da lista mais completa de sempre das plantas conhecidas para a ciência. A base de dados, com mais de um milhão de nomes, está terminada, revelaram hoje os jardins botânicos de Kew e do Missouri, instituições de referência mundial em biologia vegetal.

 

Uma em cada cinco plantas no mundo está ameaçada de extinção (Paulo Ricca)

A Lista das Plantas, que será actualizada, inclui 1,25 milhões de nomes científicos de plantas. Destes, cerca de 300 mil são nomes já aceites e 480 mil são sinónimos. Para os restantes 260 mil nomes ainda não há certezas suficientes e há que investigar mais.

“Todos os nomes válidos publicados para as plantas, ao nível das espécies, foram incluídos na Lista das Plantas. A maioria são sinónimos e nenhum nome foi apagado”, disse Peter H. Raven, director do Jardim Botânico do Missouri, em comunicado.

Stephen Hopper, director dos Jardins de Kew, considera que esta lista “é crucial para planear, implementar e monitorizar os programas de conservação das plantas de todo o mundo”.

Sem nomes específicos, a tarefa de compreender e comunicar o cenário botânico do planeta seria um “caos ineficiente, que custaria muito caro”, revelam os Jardins de Kew, em comunicado. Assim, a lista permite ligar os diferentes nomes científicos utilizados para uma espécie em particular e relacionar as espécies a publicações científicas para ajudar os investigadores.

Os botânicos ingleses e norte-americanos começaram a trabalhar nesta lista em 2008, comparando as famílias de plantas registadas pelos Jardins de Kew e o sistema Trópicos, um banco de dados alimentado desde 1982 pelos Jardins do Missouri, com cientistas a trabalhar em 38 países.

“Nas últimas décadas, estas duas instituições de referência têm feito um investimento extraordinário para identificar espécies à escala global e para construir uma rede de avaliação mundial da diversidade vegetal”, comentou Helena Freitas, directora do Jardim Botânico da Universidade de Coimbra. As duas conseguiram “chegar a um número bastante realista” e cientificamente válido sobre o número de espécies, acrescentou ao PÚBLICO, salientando a “promoção da ideia da importância das plantas como base das cadeias alimentares”.

Em Outubro, os 193 países membros da Convenção sobre a Diversidade Biológica reunidos em Nagoya, no Japão, decidiram criar até 2020 um banco de dados online de toda a flora conhecida no planeta.

Uma em cada cinco plantas no mundo está ameaçada de extinção, revelou em Setembro um estudo da União Internacional da Conservação da Natureza (UICN).

'IPCC for biodiversity' approved after long negotiation

Emma Marris

New Scientist

• 13 June 2009 by Andy Coghlan
• Magazine issue 2712. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
• For similar stories, visit the Food and Drink and Endangered Species Topic Guides

A Quechua Farmer working the land in Puru. These farmers now play a major role in protecting the world's crops (Image: Eye Ubiquitous / Rex Features)

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IF YOU like potatoes, chances are you will one day owe some measure of thanks to the Quechua Indians of Peru. That's because they will be making sure that potatoes continue to be available whatever the vagaries of future climate change. The Quechua (pictured) are among the first recipients of a new global fund, established last week, to make poor farmers the custodians of all the world's threatened crops.

Importantly, the move could provide valuable options should the world find itself in another food crisis.

The Peruvian farmers will be paid to look after the most diverse collection of potatoes in the world. They will try growing varieties at different altitudes and in different climatic conditions so that if today's commercially available potato varieties start to fail anywhere in the world, replacement varieties will be ready and waiting.

The aim of the new fund is to achieve the same level of readiness for all the world's staple food crops. It is a key practical element of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which aims to provide an "insurance policy" for crops. The fund has two main goals - to prevent the loss of neglected or underutilised crop varieties, and to sustain the full diversity of common crops.

Though the treaty was agreed in 2001 and came into effect in 2004, the rich and poor factions of the 120 signatory nations have been haggling until now over who should pay, and how much.

During tense negotiations last week in Tunis, Tunisia, rich countries of the world finally agreed to bankroll the five-year $116 million "Benefit-Sharing Fund" that will finance projects like the one in Peru. In essence, the fund will compensate farmers so they carry on growing unusual or traditionally grown crops instead of switching to more profitable, commercial varieties.

By keeping as many food varieties as possible ticking over as usual on small-scale farms throughout the world, the hope is that they will be available if needed in a climate crisis, or a food shortage like last year's. "In Peru, the aim is to react to climate change," says Bert Visser of the Centre for Genetic Resources in Wageningen, the Netherlands, and a key negotiator.

Visser points out that the treaty has already enabled the establishment of an international vault containing 1.1 million seed varieties, which opened last year in Svalbard, Norway. The new fund aims to secure the food varieties which cannot be banked in this way, and that can only be preserved if farmers carry on growing them.

Norway, Spain, Italy and Switzerland have already contributed $500,000 to the fund, which was last week divided between 11 recipient projects. Crucially, rich signatories to the treaty have now committed to supplying the remaining millions over the next five years. The US is currently considering signing up. If it does, China, Mexico and Japan are likely to follow suit.