Russia: Help save the Pavlovsk genebank

16.08.10

The world's oldest genebank faces destruction in Russia and there may not be enough time to move the precious cargo to a new location before houses are built on top of the historic land.

Holding more than 4,000 varieties of fruits and berries the Pavlovsk experimental field station was started in 1926 by Nikolai Vavilov. It's mostly a field genebank - plants growing in the ground - as many of the crops do not grow true from seeds. According the Pavlovsk station's director, "more than 90% of the collection is found in no other research station."

The collection survived the German siege of Leningrad during WWII, and one of Vavilov's assistants reportedly starved to death protecting all these edible seeds.

Urge the President of Russia to save the seedbank and the important genetic information it is storing.

There are a number of petitions floating round the net, so sign up if you want to help.

Sign the petition

Global Crop Diversity Trust petition