Tony Bennett, Differing diversities - Council of Europe

Reasearch position paper 7legislation to document, protect and conserve natural and cultural landscapes.Switzerland defines the preservation of biological diversity so as to imply the“protection and maintenance of rare habitats of great value, including traditionaland cultural landscapes” (Switzerland, 1998: 25). The European Council Partiesare also subject to European Union (EU) regulations with respect to the conservation,description, collection and use of genetic resources in the agricultural sector(Council of the European Union, 1994) and European Community (EC) objectivesto maintain agricultural and forestry sectors that manage resources so as topreserve cultural landscapes. Cultural landscapes can only be preserved to theextent that the traditional KIP which developed them is simultaneously safeguarded.Surveys of domestic biodiversity in Council Parties are ongoing and, in somecases, the cataloguing activity has been accompanied by a corresponding digitaldatabase network with international linkups (for example, Austria, 1997: 21).Inventories of the biogenetic reserves of the Council of Europe are currently inpreparation and most of the Council Parties are still in the process of documentingautochthonous animal and plant species. Council Parties understand that thehomogenisation of modes of cultivation threatens the existence of certain speciesand that species will likely decline to the extent that heterogenous cultivationactivities are abandoned. 12 Therefore, although few specific measures to protectdomestic traditional KIP have been taken, the importance of the relationshipbetween the presence of particular species and particular forms of cultivation –many of which are likely to vanish unless recognised, recorded, and supported – iswidely acknowledged. Council Parties have implemented a number of measuresas incentives to preserve the in situ preservation of biodiversity. 13Ex situ collections of genetic resources – including genebanks, seedbanks, herbariumsand microbial culture collections – exist in most of the Council Parties. 14 Asthe United Kingdom’s National Report on Biological Diversity acknowledged,however, much “biodiversity information remains scattered across the country inmany different and incompatible forms” (United Kingdom, 1998: 26). Only to theextent that information networks are created that are accessible, regardless ofwhere the information is held, will the potential of information technology to promotebiodiversity begin to be realised.Most Council Parties house or are party to the network of international genebanksestablished under the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the FAO promoteswidespread access to these resources. Currently the network includestwelve genebanks but thirty-one additional countries have declared an intention tojoin their genebanks to this network. If accomplished, this amalgamation wouldincorporate into one network 46% of all of the planet’s plant genetic resources(Austria, 1997: 46). The vast majority of crop germplasm held in these banks wascollected from farming communities in the developing world (Crucible II Group2000: 20-22). However, the rights of providers of this material to have a stake inany profits made in the successful commercial application of it is still under dispute.A related area of controversy requiring further research is the propriety of173