By V. Johnson and R. Bourdeix, 2019.
The following Terms of Reference (TOR) were proposed for the Appraisal of the International Coconut Genebanks. Points to assess were:
- Legal status of the arrangements between COGENT and the hosting country Governments in hosting the International Coconut Genebanks (ICGs).
- Legal status of the land occupied by the IGGs.
- Land tenure and similar problems presently encountered by the ICGs and contact and position of the key persons who could play a role in mitigating these problems at national level.
- Type of varieties, populations and accessions conserved in each International Coconut Genebanks (ICGs), with special emphasis on the accessions considered as active at the international level (see annex). The number of true-to-type living palms, date of planting and date of last inventory for all accessions will be updated in the Coconut Genetic Resources Database (CGRD) by curators with help of experts. Curators should indicate if all available active accessions are recorded in CGRD or if only part of them are. A map or a table indicating the location of accessions in the genebank should be provided, updated and improved with the experts (see annex 5.4 and 5.10b-Fig 2 for details).
- Level of maintenance and wellbeing of each of accessions in each of the ICGs.
- Evidence of plans for additional collections and prospecting to be conducted and the funding sources for the planned collection activities for expanding the ICGs.
- Regeneration plans for the continuity of the accessions in each ICGs.
- Current status of the research activities being conducted on the existing accessions and future R&D plans in relation to: (a) characterisation of the accessions; (b) evaluation of the yield of nuts per palm per annum, characters for high value coconut products (HVCPs) and of pests (diseases and insects) tolerance characters; and (c) establishment of database for the management of the information collected from the accessions in terms of geotagging of palms for each accession, data collection and recording protocols; and statistical analysis of the data collected.
- Records of the number of accessions that have been requested for sharing by other COGENT member countries.
- Number of accessions that have been shared with other COGENT member countries.
- Involvement of the genebank site in research and conservation of other crops other than the coconut palm (this increases the patrimonial value of the sites).
- Evidence of long-term financial sustainability plans for each ICGs in terms of: (a) On-farm income generating activities (i.e. intercropping, animal integration, etc.), (b) Off-farm production and marketing (i.e. production of HVCPs, etc.), and (c) Any other revenue generation activities or sources.
The reports of the ICG Curators or Managers should also be arranged under the above-mentioned sequence of headings.
