Realising the potential of bioresources to mitigate development challenges in Ethiopia, a centre of wild and domesticated plant diversity

该挑战集群旨在使埃塞俄比亚能够发挥其丰富和独特的植物多样性的潜力，以应对粮食安全、健康和营养、贫困和流离失所方面的全球挑战。为此，它将开展研究和能力建设，以确定和管理植物多样性高的地区，围绕目前未充分利用的植物开发价值链，并批判性地评估植物多样性在应对发展挑战方面可以发挥的作用。埃塞俄比亚面临着与环境变化和退化有关的多重相互作用的发展挑战，其中粮食不安全是核心问题。超过85%的人口依赖雨养农业，这极易受到气候、社会和政治冲击的影响，近几十年的严重饥荒就证明了这一点。在1.08亿人口中，三分之一的人吃不饱饭，四分之一的人生活在国家贫困线以下。营养不良正在造成发育迟缓和其他健康问题，影响数百万人的生活。粮食不安全也加剧了政治和资源冲突以及人口流离失所，影响了200多万埃塞俄比亚人。气候变化将通过增加干旱和高温胁迫降低农业生产力，从而加剧这些问题，因此迫切需要确定和开发适应新条件的作物品种。作为植物多样性（包括野生植物和驯化作物）的热点，埃塞俄比亚拥有可以在解决这些挑战方面发挥重要作用的生物资源。例如，该集群内目前的研究正在发现各种enset（2000万埃塞俄比亚人的主要淀粉主食），它们富含必需微量营养素锌和铁，可能有助于解决慢性营养不良问题。几乎可以肯定的是，科学将会发现更多具有抗气候压力和其他有价值特性的作物品种。同样，野生植物多样性可能包含遗传资源，可用于作物改良和发展价值链，为贫困农村社区创造经济机会。然而，由于自然栖息地的转换和退化以及农业景观的同质化，野生和驯化的植物多样性正在丧失，利用埃塞俄比亚本土植物多样性来应对发展挑战的机会正在迅速减少。目前迫切需要研究确定和管理埃塞俄比亚现存最重要的植物多样性热点地区，埃塞俄比亚政府已经邀请Kew支持埃塞俄比亚科学家的这项工作。在英国与埃塞俄比亚30多年成功合作的基础上，该集群的目标是实现埃塞俄比亚植物多样性的潜力，以解决贫困、粮食不安全和气候变化脆弱性问题。为实现这一目标，我们的目标是实现以下目标：目标1：确定和绘制埃塞俄比亚野生和驯化植物多样性热点地区，并为埃塞俄比亚政府指定和管理这些地区提供建议。目标2：确定具有有价值特征的生物资源并对其进行定性，以使围绕目前未充分利用的植物开发价值链，从而使社会最贫困阶层受益。目标3：评估野生和驯化植物多样性高的地区的实际和感知的社会经济影响，为这些地区的可持续和公平管理提供信息。目标4：批判性地评估野生和驯化植物多样性高的地区以及相关的植物产品价值链在应对更广泛的地方和区域发展挑战方面发挥的作用。目标5：提高埃塞俄比亚和英国研究人员开展支持埃塞俄比亚植物多样性保护和可持续利用的研究和相关活动的能力。

This Challenge Cluster aims to enable Ethiopia to realise the potential of its abundant and unique plant diversity to address global challenges in food security, health and nutrition, poverty and displacement. To this end, it will conduct research and capacity-building to identify and manage areas of high plant diversity, develop value chains around currently underutilised plants, and critically evaluate the roles that plant diversity can play in addressing development challenges.Ethiopia faces multiple interacting development challenges linked to environmental change and degradation, of which food insecurity is central. Over 85% of the population depends upon rainfed agriculture, which is highly vulnerable to climatic, social and political shocks, as demonstrated by severe famine in recent decades. From a population of >108 million, a third of have insufficient food to eat and a quarter live below the national poverty line. Malnutrition is causing stunting and other health problems, impacting the lives of millions of individuals. Food insecurity is also contributing to political and resource-based conflict and human displacement that affects over 2 million Ethiopians. Climate change will exacerbate these problems by reducing agricultural productivity through increased drought and heat stress, creating an urgent need to identify and develop crop varieties adapted to the new conditions.As a hotspot for plant diversity (both wild plants and domesticated crops), Ethiopia harbours biological resources that could play important roles in solving these challenges. For example, current research within the Cluster is uncovering varieties of enset (the principal starch staple for 20 million Ethiopians) with high content of essential micronutrients zinc and iron that can potentially help to address chronic malnutrition. Further crop varieties possessing resilience to climatic stressors and other valuable traits are almost certainly waiting to be discovered by science. Likewise, wild plant diversity likely contains genetic resources that can be used in crop improvement and to develop value chains that create economic opportunities for poor rural communities.The opportunity to apply Ethiopia's indigenous plant diversity to address development challenges is rapidly diminishing, however, as wild and domesticated plant diversity is lost to the conversion and degradation of natural habitats and the homogenisation of agricultural landscapes. Research is urgently needed to identify and manage the most important remaining hotspots of Ethiopian plant diversity, and the Ethiopian government has invited Kew to support Ethiopian scientists in this effort.Building upon a 30+ year history of successful UK-Ethiopia collaboration, the goal of this Cluster is to realise the potential of Ethiopia's plant diversity to address poverty, food insecurity and climate change vulnerability. Toward this goal, we aim to achieve the following objectives:Objective 1: Identify and map hotspots of Ethiopian wild and domesticated plant diversity and provide recommendations to the Government of Ethiopia for the designation and management of these areas.Objective 2: Identify and characterise bioresources with valuable traits to enable the development of value chains around currently underutilised plants in a way that benefits the poorest sectors of society.Objective 3: Evaluate the actual and perceived socio-economic impacts of areas of high wild and domesticated plant diversity to inform sustainable and equitable management of these areas.Objective 4: Critically evaluate the role that areas of high wild and domesticated plant diversity and associated plant-product value chains play in addressing broader local and regional development challenges.Objective 5: Enhance the capacity of Ethiopian and UK-based researchers to conduct research and associated activities that support the conservation and sustainable use of Ethiopian plant diversity.