Celebrating 30 years of the French Commission on Forest Genetic Resources
The French Commission on Forest Genetic Resources (CRGF) is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. This body, created in 1991 from the first ideas formulated by a working group on "forest genetic networks" (Steinmetz, 1991), will organise a general assembly of local managers in charge of genetic conservation units and ex situ collections throughout the country on 14 and 15 June.
The meeting and anniversary celebration, which has been delayed for two years due to the COVID-19 situation, aims to communicate and discuss the national strategy for the conservation of FGR, share experiences in the field, review and improve CRGF modus operandi and finalise the action plan for the coming years.
The CRGF has been actively involved in EUFORGEN since its inception. Its first president was Michel Arbez, one of the geneticists who pushed for the creation of a European Forest Genetic Resources Programme at the Ministerial Conference for the Protection of Forest Genetic Resources in Europe (now FOREST EUROPE).
CRGF is a multi-partner commission where ministries, research institutes, public forest service, private forest owners, nature protection agencies and NGOs are represented. It proposes a strategy for forest genetic resources (FGR) conservation to the Ministry in charge of the forests and implements it; it has tight links with another commission in charge of forest reproductive material issues (CTPS).
The CRFG's current challenges and efforts
Today, the CRGF develops different and complementary conservation devices. For priority species, country-level conservation programs are developed through networks of in situ conservation units (both in managed forests and nature reserves), dynamic ex-situ units, and/or ex-situ collections. Recently, to allow conserving additional species without developing new intensive country-level networks for each species, we initiated a program of in situ conservation for local populations of genetic interest.
One of the main challenges is to maintain and continue developing the FGR conservation effort in the long term, which relies on the engagement and coordination of multiple actors. Therefore, to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of CRGF, the entity decided to organise a meeting of the forest managers, reserve managers and ex-situ collection managers who precisely care for the conserved genetic resources in the field and who can relay FGR conservation messages to other actors around the country.
This meeting will be devoted to information, exchanges, awareness raising, and discussing the action plan of the national strategy that follows the FGR strategy for Europe proposed by EUFORGEN.
