Plant biodiversity conservation is ideally conducted through the dual complementary strategies of collecting and storing this diversity in seedbanks (ex situ) and protecting representative populations in their natural environments (in situ). Despite its importance, there have been few major international efforts in conserving agrobiodiversity and crop wild relatives in particular in situ. The lessons learned from those projects that have occurred are therefore of great interest in terms of devising sound strategies for future work.

The recently published Crop Wild Relatives – A Manual of in situConservation captures practical experiences and presents good practices learned in five countries: Armenia, Bolivia, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, and Uzbekistan during the UNEP/GEF funded project “In situconservation of CWR” . It is available online for free in English, Spanish, and French, and is complemented by a diversity of online eLearning modules that clearly describe the key issues involved with the conservation of CWR in situ.