Challenges and opportunities for conservation of forest genetic resources

Increased use of forest resources and a shrinking forestland base threaten the sustainability of forest genetic resources and highlight the importance of conservation and sustainable management of these resources. As forest t rees are normally the keystone species of forest ecosystems, their continue d existence is essential for many floral and faunal associations of these e cosystems. Major concepts, challenges and opportunities for conservation of forest genetic resources are briefly discussed in this paper. The major ch allenges include population decline and population structure changes due to forest removal and conversion of forest land to other uses, forest fragmen tation, forestry practices, climate change, disease conditions, introduced pests, atmospheric pollution, and introgressive hybridization. Developing s cientifically sound conservation strategies, maintaining minimum viable pop ulation sizes, and deployment of genetically engineered organisms represent other important challenges in conservation. The usefulness of various bioc hemical and molecular genetic markers, adaptive traits, and genetic diversi ty measures for developing conservation strategies for in situ and ex situ genetic resource conservation are also discussed. Major opportunities for c onservation of forest genetic resources include: use of molecular genetic m arkers and adaptive traits for developing conservation strategies; in situ conservation through natural reserves, protected areas, and sustainable for est management practices; ex situ conservation through germplasm banks, com mon garden archives, seed banks, DNA banks, and tissue culture and cryopres ervation; incorporation of disease, pest, and stress tolerance traits throu gh genetic transformation; plantation forestry; and ecological restoration of rare or declining tree species and populations. Forest genetic resource conservation and resource use should be considered complementary rather tha n contradictory to each other.