Many world leaders gathered in New York last September to renew their commitment to the sustainable development of the planet by adopting the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which specifically mention the importance of plant genetic resources for agriculture (PGRFA) at several occasions.

As the global community is gearing up to implement effective action to achieve the SDGs, it is important to establish baselines and monitoring tools to keep track of our progress towards achieving these aims.

We feel that the Crop Wild Relatives (CWR) project and the methods it has employed to map CWR diversity and identify priorities for conservation and collection could serve as a useful example of how this can be done, and we want policy makers to take note. Therefore, we published a policy brief on this issue and would like to encourage everyone to circulate it to any relevant policy makers whom you may know.