Harnessing the Diversity of Wild Relatives of Tropical Fruit Tree Species for Sustainable LivelihoodsBhuwon Sthapit, R. Vasudeva, Salma Idris, Suchitra Changtragoon, Winarno, Panida Rungrattakul, Supatra Limpiyaprapan and Ramanatha Rao22 August 2014, International Horticulture Conference, Brisbane, Australia

in partnership with

The Tropical Fruit Tree Project

• Wild fruit trees: Extraordinarily valuable resource

• Provide important genetic resources

• Important source of income to dis-advataged rural households

• Key element to overcome poverty

• Provider of several ecosystem services

Tropical Fruit Trees (TFT)

Tropical Fruit Tree resources are in danger

Today their genetic resources are threatened due to Habitat loss and Climate Change

Conserving the Wild Relatives of TFTs in their Natural Surroundings is Important because:

Populations to continue to evolve and

Generate new genetic variations that are adapted to changing conditions

However, the conservation of TFT Resources is complicated:

• Ex Situ conservation is NOT always possible:

• Recalcitrant seeds: cannot be stored in genebanks• Field Gene Banks: are expensive / sudden collapse

• In Situ conservation is limited due to :

• Requirement of vast wilderness area for effective conservation• Effective population sizes cannot be achieved easily

• Which wild relatives are important? Knowing them

• Where are these resources? Geographic distribution

• Why/how are they being used? Documenting traditional uses

• How are they being protected? Good practices of on-farm diversity

• What policies are Important? Policy environment for protection

Key to the conservation & use of wild relatives

• 36 Communities in four countries: India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand– Documenting Species

Richness – Understanding their

local uses – Multiple Values

Project Sites

• Multiple Sources of Information:– PRA, Baseline Surveys

– Focus group discussions on traditional knowledge documentation

– Fruit Diversity Fairs

– Community Fruit Catalogues

– Key informant surveys of Custodian Farmers

• Information obtained:– through personal interview

– field observation methods

Methods and Materials

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Field Visits:Good practices

Salient Results

Sl.no. Wild species Local name India Indonesia Malaysia Thailand

Mangifera

1 Mangifera indica a a a a2 M. appalanta a2 M. andamanica a3 M. caesia a a4 M. foetida a a a5 M. griffithii a a6 M. havilandi a7 M. laurina a a8 M. odarata a9 M. pajang a

10 M. pentandra a a11 M. quadrifida a a12 M. torquenda a a13 M. camptosperma a14 M. cochinchinensis a15 M. lagenifera a16 M. duperreana a17 Mangifera sp. Mamuang a18 Mangifera sp.. Mamuang namtan a19 Mangifera sp. pakkrabog a20 Mangifera sp. Mamuang samhoy a21 Mangifera sp. Mamuang tansine a22 Mangifera sp. Mamuang kaeo a

Number of wild species of major tropical fruit tree species found to be used by the communities in different countries

Genus No. of Communities

India Indonesia Malaysia Thailand

Mangifera 2 11 11 7

Garcinia 5 3 8 14

Nephelium - 5 7 4

Citrus 8 - - 1

A total o

f 85 wild

specie

s of fo

ur major T

FT

used by the co

mmunities

Globally Significant Wild Relatives

Indonesia: three wild species of Mangifera such as Kasturi (M. casturi), Kuini (M. odorata), and Binjai (M. caesia) have been deemed globally significant wild species

These genetic resources have uniquely adapted to the waterlogged ecosystems of Sarawak Islands in Indonesia and Malaysia.

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Garcinia indica : Orange, green and yellow morphotypes

a

India: three wild varieties of Garcinia and one variety of Citrus are some of the examples for their global threat status and due to specific use as medicine

• Credit: R. Vasudeva

Globally Significant Wild Relatives

Pic: R. Vasudeva

Inter-specific grafting of Garcinia to overcome the genetic limitations of one species, innovated by a Custodian Farmer in India.

An inter-specific grafting yields valuable fruit and comes up in drier conditions also

Thailand: M. odorata and M. duperreana are used as rootstock to scion of commercial varieties of M. indica

Garcinia gummi-gutta: Highly valued but needs very moist conditions and not tolerant to drier conditions

Garcinia indica: Root stock resistant to drought

Use of wild relatives in plant breeding/propagation

Credit: R. Vasudeva

Sustainable Diets

In India, wild aromatic pickle mango (WPM) is:

• harvested from wild, • used for preparing aromatic

pickles and • semi-domesticated in the home

gardens.

Sustainable Diets

Sarawak, Malaysia:

Communities plant and harvest both wild and semi-domesticated fruit trees such as durian, Rambutan, Artocarpus spp (tarap) fruits, Mangosteen etc. as sources of sustainable and naturally biofortified diets.

Local Livelihoods and Uses

Genus India Indonesia Malaysia Thailand

Mangifera 09 3 10 04

Garcinia 05 2 6 04

Nephelium - 2 7 03

Citrus 5 - - 07

Number of major uses of wild species in different countries

Credit: R. Vasudeva

Is there an association between the utility and the frequency of wild relatives?

An example from the Western Ghats, India

•Two communities were considered

•13 major utility of the all Tropical fruit trees were considered

•A cultural importance value was computed.

This index measures the use-value of a plant by including the number of informants citing a given use-value.

Where ‘N’ is the number of informants, ‘NU’ is the number of use-values cited and ‘UR’ is the number of different uses mentioned by each informant i.

(Philips and Gentry in 1993)

Association between the Cultural Value Index (CI) and log frequency of the wild species in home gardens

Association between the cultural importance value and its frequency in typical coastal and upper ghat village communities of the Western Ghats of India

Communities maintain those wild species that are MOST useful them

Ecosystem services of wild relatives

Sarawak, Malaysia: Profusely flowering wild species such as M. foetida, M. odorata, Nephelium lappaceum – ak, Spondias cytherea, Bouea macrophylla, Phyllanthus acidus provide shelter to trigona bee populations.

Western Ghats, India:wild aromatic pickle mango types are found throughout riverine forests and are well known for stabilizing river banks.

Conclusions

In 36 communities of four South and Southeast Asian countries that plant breeding uses of wild species and wild relatives of target crops are limited to use of rootstock or scion for domestication process.

Local communities value them for culturally associated sustainable diets, nutrition and other goods and services provided including ecosystem and evolutionary services provided.

Among the initial populations examined, those which are genetically most diverse within, should merit a high priority for conservation.

Credit: R. Vasudeva

This study is the output of the UNEP/GEF-supported regional project “Conservation and Sustainable Use of Cultivated and Wild Tropical Fruit Diversity:

Promoting Sustainable Livelihoods, Food Security and Ecosystem Services”, implemented in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand.

The project is coordinated regionally by Bioversity International in collaboration with Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi; Indonesian Centre for

Horticulture Research and Development (ICHORD), Jakarta; Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI), Kuala Lumpur; Department of

Agriculture (DOA), Bangkok.

www.bioversityinternational.org

Thank you