A blog maintained by Tevita Kete, PGR Officer

Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Suva, Fiji Islands

 

   

This weblog documents the activities of Pacific Agricultural Genetic Resources Network (PAPGREN), along with other information on plant genetic resources (PGR) in the Pacific.

The myriad varieties found within cultivated plants are fundamental to the present and future productivity of agriculture. PAPGREN, which is coordinated by the Land Resources Division of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), helps Pacific countries and territories to conserve their crop genetic diversity sustainably, with technical assistance from the Bioversity International (BI) and support from NZAID and ACIAR.

SPC also hosts the Centre of Pacific Crops and Trees (CEPaCT). The CEPaCT maintains regional in vitro collections of crops important to the Pacific and carries out research on tissue culture technology. The CEPaCT Adviser is Dr Mary Taylor (MaryT@spc.int), the CEPaCT Curator is Ms Valerie Tuia (ValerieT@spc.int).

 

 

mere


PAPGREN coordination and support

  • IPGRI
  • ACIAR
  • NZAID
  • CTA
  • SPC
  • PAPGREN
  • CEPaCT

     genebank locations
    Click on the thumbnail to see a map of the locations of Pacific genebanks. Click here to download a regional directory of genebanks in the Pacific, including information on their location, contact details and holdings.

    PAPGREN partners


    Mr William Wigmore
    Director of Research
    Ministry of Agriculture
    Department of Resources & Development
    P.O. Box 96
    Rarotonga
    Cook Islands
    Tel: (682) 28711-29720
    Fax: (682) 21881
    Email: cimoa@oyster.net.ck

    Mr Adelino S. Lorens
    Chief
    Agriculture Pohnpei
    Office of Economic Affairs
    P.O. Box 1028
    Kolonia
    Pohnpei 96941
    Federated States of Micronesia
    Tel: (691) 3202400
    Fax: (691) 3202127
    Email: pniagriculture@mail.fm

    Dr Lois Englberger
    Island Food Community of Pohnpei
    Research Advisor
    P.O. Box 2299
    Kolonia
    Pohnpei 96941
    Federated States of Micronesia
    Email: nutrition@mail.fm

    Mr Apisai Ucuboi
    Director of Research
    Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forest
    Koronivia Research Station
    P.O. Box 77
    Nausori
    Fiji Islands
    Tel: (679) 3477044
    Fax: (679) 3477546-400262
    Email: apisainu@yahoo.com

    Dr Maurice Wong
    Service du Developpement Rural
    B.P. 100
    Papeete
    Tahiti 98713
    French Polynesia
    Tel: (689) 42 81 44
    Fax: (689) 42 08 31
    Email: maurice.wong@rural.gov.pf

    Mr Tianeti Beenna Ioane
    Head, Research Section
    Division of Agriculture
    Ministry of Environment, Lands and Agricultural Development
    P.O. Box 267
    Tarawa
    Kiribati
    Tel: (686) 28096-28108-28080
    Fax: (686) 28121
    Email : agriculture@tskl.net.ki; Beenna_ti@yahoo.com

    Mr Frederick Muller
    Secretary
    Ministry of Resources & Development
    P.O. Box 1727
    Majuro 96960
    Marshall Islands
    Tel: (692) 6253206
    Fax: (692) 6257471
    Email: rndsec@ntamar.net

    Mr Herman Francisco
    Director
    Bureau of Agriculture
    Ministry of Resources & Development
    P.O. Box 460
    Koror 96940
    Palau
    Tel: (680) 4881517
    Fax: (680) 4881725
    Email: bnrd@pnccwg.palaunet.com

    Ms Rosa Kambuou
    Principal Scientist PGR
    NARI Dry Lowlands Programme
    Laloki Agricultural Research Station
    P.O. Box 1828
    Boroko
    National Capital District
    Papua New Guinea
    Tel: (675) 3235511
    Fax: (675) 3234733
    Email: kambuou@global.net.pg

    Ms Laisene Samuelu
    Principal Crop Development Officer
    Crops Division
    Ministry of Agriculture, Forests, Fisheries & Meteorology
    P.O. Box 1874
    Apia
    Samoa
    Tel: (685) 23416-20605
    Fax: (685) 20607-23996
    Email: lsamuelu@lesamoa.net

    Mr Jimi Saelea
    Director of Research
    Department of Agriculture and Livestock
    P.O. Box G13
    Honiara
    Guadalcanal
    Solomon Islands
    Tel: (677) 27987

    Mr Tony Jansen
    Planting Materials Network
    Kastom Gaden Association
    Burns Creek, Honiara
    P.O. Box 742
    Honiara
    Solomon Islands
    Tel: (677) 39551
    Email: kastomgaden@solomon.com.sb

    Mr Finao Pole
    Head of Research
    Ministry of Agriculture & Forests
    P.O. Box 14
    Nuku'alofa
    Tonga
    Tel: (676) 23038
    Fax: (676) 24271
    Email: thaangana@hotmail.com

    Mr Frazer Bule Lehi
    Head of Research
    Department of Agriculture & Rural Development
    Private Mail Bag 040
    Port Vila
    Vanuatu
    Tel: (678) 22525
    Fax: (678) 25265
    Email: flehi@hotmail.com

    Other links

    Other CROP agencies
    Forum Secretariat
    University of the South Pacific
    SPREP

    Pacific biodiversity
    Biodiversity hotspots
    Breadfruit Institute
    Hawaiian native plants
    Intellectual property rights
    Nature Conservancy
    PBIF
    PestNet
    SIDS
    WWF South Pacific Program

    Other Pacific organizations
    Foundation of the Peoples of the South Pacific
    Micronesian Seminar
    Te Puna web directory

    Pacific news
    Cafe Pacific
    CocoNET Wireless
    Island Directory
    Pacific Islands News
    Pacific Islands Report
    Pacific Islands Travel
    Pacific Time
    South Pacific travel
    Time Pacific

    Interested in GIS?
    DIVA-GIS

     

  •  

    Wednesday, October 16, 2002


    I started working here in June. This is the update on PAPGREN activities I sent out in late July.

    For those of you whom I haven’t yet met, my name is Luigi Guarino and I started work as SPC’s Plant Genetic Resources Adviser about 3 weeks ago. My task is to support the coordination of the Pacific Agricultural Plant Genetic Resources Network (PAPGREN) - and the implementation of its Action Plan - established during the September 2001 meeting in Suva which most of you attended.

    I hope you’ll agree that exchange of information is a vital function of a network, and I would therefore suggest that I send you updates on PAPGREN activities every month or so by email, this being the first. What do you think? Would that be useful? If you have any news that you’d like communicated to the other network members, you can just use “reply to all” on this email, or send it to me and I’ll collate the information and send it on to all members at the end of every month (or indeed more frequently if there’s a lot going on!).

    Let me quickly summarize some of the things that have been going on over the past few weeks that are relevant to PAPGREN:

    1. We’ve prepared a draft text for a public awareness pamphlet describing PAPGREN. I am attaching it here. I would be grateful for any comments you may have on this. We would like to include contact details for all member countries, so please let me know how you would like your country contact to appear.

    2. We’ve also started to discuss with Tevita Kete, Tony Jansen and Rosa Kambuou the organization of the National PGR Stakeholder Workshops that are called for in the Action Plan. I am therefore also attaching a draft document setting out the objectives and strategy of such meetings. I would welcome comments on this too. We need to start thinking concretely about organizing these meetings, in order to get clear ideas of national priorities, capacities, and needs. We are in touch with FAO to see to what extent these workshops and other network activities could contribute to the process of monitoring implementation of the Global Plan of Action and revision of the State of the World’s PGR.

    3. We’ve done some thinking about the PAPGREN web pages. Basically, the idea would be to have information by crop, but also country pages. These could contain brief summaries of the PGR situation in the country, for example information on collections maintained, in situ conservation activities etc. This is something that could be discussed further at the national workshops, but if you have any specific ideas or suggestion, do please send them to me.

    4. I’ve started contacting genebanks around the world (national, regional and international) for information on their holdings of germplasm from the Pacific countries. I’ve had a number of replies, for example from INIBAP, AVRDC and the US germplasm system, and hope to put the information together very soon for you to have a look at. Maybe I could also mention in this connection that just before coming to SPC I also spent some time at INIBAP participating in a GIS workshop during which we did some spatial analysis of data on PNG material in the Musa Germplasm Information System.

    5. I’ve started assembling a bibliography and list of Internet references on PGR conservation in the Pacific. This is still fairly raw at the moment but contains citations to over 300 references for the period 1989-2001. I still need to organize it in an easy-to-use way. Would it be useful to do something similar at the national level for gray literature?

    6. Those of you who were also at the regional on-farm meeting in Suva in May, held just before the TaroGen annual meeting, will have received a brief summary of the deliberations, prepared by Mary Taylor and myself. I’ll attach it here again just in case. I’m working on a project concept note based on the meeting discussions, which will hopefully include linkages with initiatives such as Kastom Gaden Association’s Farmer First project, on which we’ve been exchanging correspondence over the past couple of weeks with Tony Jansen and Grahame Jackson.

    7. We’ve been in touch with Michael Halewood, who is the policy specialist at IPGRI in Rome, in connection with a possible study about the flow of PGR between the network participating countries, and in and out of the region generally, as a complement to the review paper that is also being prepared by a regional policy expert. This is still in the early stages so I’ll keep you posted on how things develop.

    8. Discussions have continued with regard to the Biodiversity and Conservation course at the University of the South Pacific. SPC staff will provide training sessions in conservation and use of agro-biodiversity when the course starts in the next semester.

    9. We’ve had visits from Siosiua Halavatau, Chief of Extension in Tonga, and a UPOV fact-finding mission to Fiji.

    10. The 11th COGENT steering committee meeting has just been held in Bangkok, Thailand. As far as PGR goes, the action plan agreed at the meeting included continuing the movement of accession to the International Coconut Genebank, increasing submissions on characterization for the Coconut Genetic Resources Database, and development of a regional germplasm catalogue with photos.

    I think that’s about it for now from my side. But what’s been happening at your end? Do let us know so that we can share it within our network and build up our knowledge of each other’s activities and of what’s happening in PGR in the region as a whole.

    Please do get in touch if you think any of the people working on PGR issues here at SPC can assist your national programme in any way. I look forward to hearing from all of you.

    * Comments:

    Post a Comment

     
    Archive

    October 2002

    November 2002

    December 2002

    January 2003

    February 2003

    March 2003

    April 2003

    May 2003

    June 2003

    July 2003

    August 2003

    September 2003

    October 2003

    November 2003

    December 2003

    January 2004

    February 2004

    March 2004

    April 2004

    May 2004

    June 2004

    July 2004

    August 2004

    September 2004

    October 2004

    November 2004

    December 2004

    January 2005

    February 2005

    March 2005

    April 2005

    May 2005

    June 2005

    July 2005

    August 2005

    September 2005

    October 2005

    November 2005

    December 2005

    January 2006

    February 2006

    March 2006

    April 2006

    May 2006

    June 2006

    July 2006

    August 2006

    September 2006

    October 2006

    November 2006

    December 2006

    January 2007

    February 2007

    March 2007

    April 2007

    May 2007

    June 2007

    July 2007

    August 2007

    September 2007

    October 2007

    November 2007

    December 2007

    January 2008

    February 2008

    March 2008

    April 2008

    May 2008

    June 2008

    July 2008

    August 2008

    September 2008

    October 2008

    November 2008

    December 2008

    January 2009

    February 2009

    March 2009

    April 2009

    May 2009

    June 2009

    July 2009

    August 2009

    September 2009

    October 2009

    November 2009

    January 2010


    RSS Feed
    Alternative feed
    Contact Tevita
     

     

    Something new:


    Agrobiodiversity Weblog: For discussions of conservation and sustainable use of the genetic resources of crops, livestock and their wild relatives.  

    PestNet: For on-line information, advice and pest identification for the Pacific and beyond. Contact: Grahame Jackson.

     

     

    Pacific Mapper: For on-line mapping of point data over satellite images of the Pacific provided by Google Maps.

     

     

    DIVA-GIS: For free, easy-to-use software for the spatial analysis of biodiversity data.
      

     

    Locations of visitors to this page