The genetic diversity that we rely upon for food and other materials is a critical issue for our future. Expanding human populations (if we totally ignore the doomsayers of Global Warming) are pressuring many species of plants to virtual oblivion. We must preserve and propagate the planet's plant diversity to ensure our future as a species.
Sowing the seeds of uncertainty
Jonathon Porritt Founder director of Forum for the Future
There has always been a problem about the way in which big environmental issues are handled by the media.
Causes once "in fashion" suddenly become invisible; other causes suddenly become all the rage. Today, it's all climate change; if it isn't climate change - from a media point-of-view - just don't bother.
Two weeks ago, for instance, the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) published its Global Environmental Outlook - a quite devastating audit of the state of the Earth, its habitats, species and resources.
A quarter of the world's flowering plants, for instance, are now threatened with extinction over the next 50 years. There was some reasonable coverage on the day itself (especially in the Independent), but then silence. Environment going to hell in a handcart - heard it all before; so what? Or words to that effect.
Save our seeds
The number of people out there today seriously worried about the health of all the plants and seeds on which modern agriculture depends must...(complete article here).
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