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实现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，贫困和流离失所等全球挑战。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，围绕目前利用不足的植物开发价值链，并严格评估植物多样性在应对发展挑战方面可以发挥的作用。超过85%的人口依赖于农业，这是非常容易受到气候，社会和政治冲击，近几十年来严重的饥荒证明。在超过1.08亿人口中，三分之一的人没有足够的食物，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。粮食无保障也助长了政治冲突和资源冲突以及影响到200多万利比里亚人的人口流离失所。气候变化将加剧这些问题，干旱和高温胁迫加剧了农业生产力的下降，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，该群组内目前的研究正在发现各种各样的enset（2 000万埃塞俄比亚人的主要淀粉主食），其基本微量营养素锌和铁含量高，可能有助于解决慢性营养不良问题。几乎可以肯定的是，更多的作物品种具有对气候压力的适应能力和其他有价值的性状，正等待科学的发现。同样，野生植物多样性可能包含可用于作物改良和开发价值链的遗传资源，为贫困农村社区创造经济机会，然而，应用埃塞俄比亚本土植物多样性应对发展挑战的机会正在迅速减少，因为野生和驯化植物多样性因自然栖息地的转换和退化以及农业景观的同质化而消失。埃塞俄比亚政府已邀请基尤支持埃塞俄比亚科学家在这方面的努力。基于30多年的成功合作历史，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，我们打算实现以下目标：目标1：确定埃塞俄比亚野生和驯化植物多样性的热点并绘制地图，并向埃塞俄比亚政府提供关于这些地区的指定和管理的建议。识别和培育具有有价值性状的生物资源，以使目前未充分利用的植物周围的价值链发展，使最贫穷的部门受益，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：严格评估野生和驯化植物多样性高的地区及其相关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的作用;目标5：提高埃塞俄比亚和英国研究人员开展研究和相关活动的能力，以支持埃塞俄比亚植物多样性的保护和可持续利用。

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.