Zugang zu Pflanzengenetischen Ressourcen für die ... - Genres

J.M.M. ENGELS
for these collections. The ongoing harmonization of the International Undertaking with the CBD,
possibly as a protocol for PGRFA, would bring these important collections under the CBD and,
thus, assure adequate conditions for its access and for sharing of the benefits.
Germplasm accessions which have been collected through similar or the same efforts as those
which have led to the international collections of the CGIAR but which were deposited in one of
the designated base collections held by a national institution, fall at present within the scope of the
sovereign rights of each nation where they are maintained. Efforts will be required to bring these
collections also within the aforementioned International Network. Details of the accessions which
are recorded in IPGRI's database as being collected through international efforts are presented in
Table 7.
Another challenge is provided by such collections which have been established through
international efforts, such as crop genetic resources networks, of which accessions are maintained
in institutional genebanks. Also, in these cases, the accessions which make up such collections are
of different geographic origin, different levels of improvement, probably with different IPRs on
them, and certainly established under or outside the influence of existing bilateral, multilateral or
international agreements.
4 Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be appreciated from the foregoing that it will be a very time consuming,
difficult and rather unproductive task to sort out the precise conditions under which the individual
accessions have entered into a given collection in order to comply with the requirements of
existing agreements. In many cases precise information on the origin of the material is lacking. To
avoid waste of time and money and to facilitate ready access to genetic diversity by plant breeders
in developing and developed countries, it is suggested that plant genetic resources for food and
agriculture remain in the public domain. It is envisaged that an extension of the current praxis of
the CGIAR Centres with unrestricted availability of the germplasm accessions which are part of
the international collections, and through collective compensation of the donors of germplasm by
providing access to improved varieties, technology and training, could form an alternative
approach. In order to protect this germplasm, placed in the public domain as part of the FAO
International Network of Ex-Situ Collections, from misappropriation and to facilitate direct
compensation, Material Transfer Agreements have been proposed (Barton and Siebeck, 1994).
Details of such a system with genetic resources in the public domain, collective and bilateral
compensation mechanisms and the establishment of an international fund for PGRFA have been
recently presented by Cooper et al. (1994) and deserve full attention.