Zugang zu Pflanzengenetischen Ressourcen für die ... - Genres

Conservation and use of PGR after UNCED and GATT
of the total of 2,727 accessions, 1,892 are recorded as wild, 721 as genetically unaltered cultivated
material (i.e. landraces), 6 accessions as sub-populations, 7 accessions as results from breeding
efforts, and 101 accessions have not yet been classified. Included in the accessions are 53 natural
hybrids, 8 artificial hybrids and 30 artificial intra-specific hybrids. Some of these hybrids needed
to be created in order to conserve the self-incompatible or low fertility clones as seed.
With regard to the question of "ownership", i.e. who was the actual donor of the germplasm to
the Braunschweig collection (not the original donator of the material in the country of collection),
the following information was obtained:
a) private person 3 accessions
b) private research institute 3 accessions
c) governmental research institute 230 accessions
d) national genebanks 84 accessions
e) research institute acting as crop-specific national genebank 2 347 accessions
f) international genebank 45 accessions
g) unknown 15 accessions
In view of the potential importance of the actual date of collecting, with regard to the CBD, 47
accessions in the potato collection were reported to be collected after 29 December 1993 when
the CBD entered into force. Since the "country of origin" is also an important aspect, the data set
at Braunschweig was analysed accordingly and the results are reported in Table 6.
Finally, since the distribution of the germplasm accessions might have an effect on the legal status
of that material, information on this aspect was requested. Over the last 7 years the Dutch-German
Potato Collection distributed 2 508 accessions to 17 countries, predominantly in Europe.
3 Current problems and future tasks
With the process of implementing the CBD at hand and the implications of the Trade-Related
Intellectual Property Section (TRIPS) of the GATT agreement on the requirement of nations to
implement Intellectual Property Right (IPR) systems for micro-organisms, microbiological
processes and plant varieties, several unresolved problems need to be dealt with. One of the major
challenges will be undoubtedly the legal status of ex-situ collections which were established prior
to the CBD coming into effect, especially those collections which were created through
international efforts. The conclusion of agreements between the Centers of the CGIAR and FAO,
placing the collections or designated germplasm under the auspices of FAO, as part of the
International Network of ex-situ collections, could be an important step in providing a legal basis