Genetic Resources of Native Tropical Fruits in Asia: Diversity, Distribution and IPGRI's Emphasis on their Conservation and Use

摘要

The Asian region holds rich diversity in native tropical fruits which play an important role in providing food for local consumption. In South, South-East and East Asia, the local/ethnic communities have been growing diverse kinds of multipurpose fruits since distant past to provide sustenance to their livelihood. Native communities have contributed towards protection, domestication and selection of a wide variety of fruits in their home gardens and marginal lands, and are the custodian of such indigenous diversity occurring in diverse agro-ecoclimates of Asia. These communities also hold enormous local knowledge on conservation and use of native diversity. Realizing the importance of tropical fruits in Asia and that these have received relatively less attention in research and development, IPGRI in its regional programme, has laid emphasis to promote their conservation and use. Under the IPGRI project on 'Promoting Conservation and Use of Tropical Fruit Species in Asia' initiated in 1993, much progress has been achieved particularly in information gathering on distribution, diversity and status of genetic resources held by different key countries/national programmes. This lecture besides dealing with the distribution and extent of diversity occurring in major and minor tropical fruits in Asia, also focuses on the role of IPGRI in promoting conservation and use of such resources.