Conservation of Forest Genetic Resources: Need and Challenges

Threats to Forest Genetic Resources (FGRs) continue at an unprecedented rate and almost 20% of the FGRs are facing different categories of threats to their existence. There is an urgent need to address the issue to arrest degradation of natural populations of forestry species and improve status of regeneration from continuously increasing biotic pressure, assess conservation status of FGRs and develop a prioritized action plan as well as to prepare an elaborate inventory of the wild populations of FGR. Before embarking on a comprehensive programme for conservation of FGRs, there are many issues that need to be addressed, like inadequate knowledge about the genetic diversity of priority forest species; limited knowledge about conservation biology, population dynamics, reproductive biology and fruit/seed production; irregularity in flowering and fruiting; variability in seed production among species and regions-the causes of these variations are often uncertain; determining the seed storage behaviour of a species; devising appropriate methods of conservation for species producing intermediate and recalcitrant seeds. Under a programme for conservation of FGRs of Uttarakhand, ex situ conservation of valuable germplasm of economically important forestry species as well as the ones facing threats to their existence, is envisaged. The paper presents the entire programme and the approaches to successfully conserve the precious genetic resources through seeds.