Work begins on major collection of Chinese biodiversity

By: Jia Hepeng

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Work begins on major collection of Chinese biodiversity</h1>
<h4>By: Jia Hepeng</h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p><P>[BEIJING] China began building a repository to house samples of its biodiversity this week. </P><br />
<P>China hopes the centre will become one of the largest collections of its kind in Asia and a world-class research centre.</P><br />
<P>Based at the Kunming Institute of Botany in China’s south-western Yunnan province, the collection will include samples of 19,000 species. Most of these will be collected from Yunnan province — which is home to more than half of China’s biodiversity — and from the neighbouring Tibet Autonomous Region.</P><br />
<P>It will eventually include nearly 200,000 samples in seed and DNA banks, a collection of living plants, and specimens of animals and micro-organisms. </P><br />
<P>The building is due to be finished and equipped in 2006 but it is expected that it will take between ten and 15 years to collect all the specimens.</P><br />
<P>The project is being jointly developed and managed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Yunnan’s provincial government at a cost of 148 million yuan (US$18 million).</P><br />
<P>At the project launch on 29 November, the vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chen Zhu, said scientists would use the collection for biotechnology research. It would also help protect biodiversity and popularise science, Chen added.</P><br />
<P>According to the academy’s website, the repository will oversee foreign research on China’s genetic resources. </P><br />
<P>In recent years, Chinese media reports have repeatedly accused foreign researchers of ‘biopiracy’ — gaining benefit from a country’s biological resources without fair compensation (see <a  href="/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readnews&itemid=195&language=1" target=_self rel="noopener noreferrer">China faces uphill battle against ‘biopiracy’</A>).</P><br />
<P2>Also on 29 November, the Kunming Institute of Botany opened the International Centre for Mountain Ecosystem Studies in Kunming, a joint project between it and the World Agroforestry Centre (known as ICRAF) that will focus on studies of natural resources and the environment in the Tibetan Plateau, east Himalayas and Hengduan Mountains.</P></p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/news/work-begins-on-major-collection-of-chinese-biodive/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/global/news/work-begins-on-major-collection-of-chinese-biodive/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

[BEIJING] China began building a repository to house samples of its biodiversity this week.

China hopes the centre will become one of the largest collections of its kind in Asia and a world-class research centre.

Based at the Kunming Institute of Botany in China’s south-western Yunnan province, the collection will include samples of 19,000 species. Most of these will be collected from Yunnan province — which is home to more than half of China’s biodiversity — and from the neighbouring Tibet Autonomous Region.

It will eventually include nearly 200,000 samples in seed and DNA banks, a collection of living plants, and specimens of animals and micro-organisms.

The building is due to be finished and equipped in 2006 but it is expected that it will take between ten and 15 years to collect all the specimens.

The project is being jointly developed and managed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Yunnan’s provincial government at a cost of 148 million yuan (US$18 million).

At the project launch on 29 November, the vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chen Zhu, said scientists would use the collection for biotechnology research. It would also help protect biodiversity and popularise science, Chen added.

According to the academy’s website, the repository will oversee foreign research on China’s genetic resources.

In recent years, Chinese media reports have repeatedly accused foreign researchers of ‘biopiracy’ — gaining benefit from a country’s biological resources without fair compensation (see China faces uphill battle against ‘biopiracy’).

Also on 29 November, the Kunming Institute of Botany opened the International Centre for Mountain Ecosystem Studies in Kunming, a joint project between it and the World Agroforestry Centre (known as ICRAF) that will focus on studies of natural resources and the environment in the Tibetan Plateau, east Himalayas and Hengduan Mountains.