Institutional support and stakeholder participation

The challenge

There is a need to formally anchor mutual understandings and expectations between responsible authorities and their institutions. Also, local stakeholders, such as taxpayers, visitors or supporters, benefiting from ecosystem goods and services may be required to maintain features or influence them otherwise. They are also potentially the cause of pressures and depletion of natural resources, but they might also be a part of future generations for whom opportunities for personal fulfilment are needed.

In practice, often managing a genetic reserve is mainly about managing people. When considering who are the stakeholders that should be involved, it is useful to think about who the users of a management plan of the genetic reserve are.

The exact spectrum of stakeholders that need to be engaged will depend also on the size of the genetic reserve. A very small location within a single farm will require much less stakeholder groups to be involved than a larger area, although this still might be broader than just a single site manager/farmer.

To be able to better decide on the stakeholders that need to be involved, it is useful to do a stakeholder analysis based on their impact, attitudes, level of interest, influence and power. A very useful source of information on how to develop a management plan in a participative way and how to involve the relevant stakeholders is in the Eurosite’s ‘Management Planning for Protected Areas – a guide for practitioners and their bosses’ (Idle and Bines, 2004).

Technical and scientific support

The ECPGR Wild Species Conservation in Genetic Reserves Working Group is a working group of experts from 35 European countries dedicated to the improvement of knowledge and methodologies concerning the conservation and use of CWR.

In the last 20 years the group has been highly active in promoting CWR conservation at the different European instances and have carried out several research projects funded by European institutions. Furthermore, they developed a concept document for in situ conservation of crop wild relatives of Europe.

The IUCN Crop Wild Relative Specialist Group (CWRSG) is an international expert group established by IUCN to promote the conservation and sustainable use of CWR diversity. It has four primary objectives:

  a) Develop effective strategies for gathering, documenting and disseminating baseline   information on crop wild relatives.

  b) Promote the conservation and use of crop wild relatives.

  c) Provide advice, expertise and access to appropriate contacts to enhance the actions of   individuals or organizations working on the conservation and use of crop wild relatives.

  d) Increase awareness of the importance to agriculture and the environment of crop wild   relatives among governments, institutions, decision-makers and the general public.

The CWRSG provides a coordinated network of experts in the field of CWR conservation and use and aims to open the necessary communication channels to share information and experiences and encourage a more strategic approach to CWR conservation (and through conservation, a link to enhanced utilization).