Lanka to develop database on Animal Genetic Resources

Sri Lanka is a country that is blessed with a very high level of biodiversity. However, it is identified as a biodiversity hot-spot not only because of the level of biodiversity but also due to high rate of disappearance of the diversity.

Considering this phenomenon, Sri Lanka has taken precautionary steps to conserve this globally important biodiversity of the country by mainstreaming biodiversity conservation as a critical step in its national development programme.

One good example is the incorporation of conservation of indigenous animal breeds as one of the policy guidelines in the National Animal Breeding Policy guidelines by the Ministry of Livestock and Rural Community Development.

The high diversity exist within the indigenous domestic animals in Sri Lanka, has been highlighted by many researchers, breeders and academia. As pointed out on those occasions the high diversity exist among indigenous domestic animals is one of the wealth of resources that the country possesses in order to face the future food security challenges in changing climatic scenarios.

Absence of proper evaluation and documentation of such resources is one of the contributing factors that lead to loss of this natural wealth for the country.

Having identified this national need, the University of Peradeniya in collaboration with the Ministries of Environment and Livestock Development and Community Development and the Department of Animal Production and Health, is implementing a research project in contributing to the conservation of indigenous domestic animal diversity of the country.

The project titled ‘Development and Application of Decision Support Tool to Conserve and Sustainable Use of Genetic Diversity in Indigenous Livestock and Wild relatives’ known as GEF-UNEP-ILRI- FAnGR.

Asia project is aiming to support the policy and decision makers in taking conservation decisions through community participation and sustainable utilization to conserve the indigenous animal genetic resources of the country.

The project is implemented in Thirappene (Anuradhapura district) and in Karuwalagaswewa (Kurunegala district), and is in its third year of implementation. The other participating countries in this project are Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam.

As one of the many activities implemented by the project in order to build capacities and improving the awareness of domestic animal genetic resources of the country, there was a three-day training workshop held from November 30 to December 2, with the participation of about 19 researches and academia all over the country to introduce a proper documentation system of the Animal Genetic Resources and their information in a national database.

This is comparable to the global data base of Domestic Animal Genetic Resources Information System (DAGRIS) managed by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The country based DARIS (C-DAGRIS) will soon be populated by the project and be available for public access by the national institutions through the WorldWide Web (www.ilri.org/dagrissl). The training programme was also held in the Institute of Continuing Education (ICE) of Department of Animal Production and Health, where Dr. Tadella Dessie from the International Livestock Research Institute participated as the resource person.

The occasion was graced by Prof. K. Samarasinghe, Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya, Dr. Gamini Ratnayake, Acting Director General of the Department of Animal Production and Health and Prof. M.N.M Ibrahim, Regional Coordinator of the GEF-UNEP-ILRI- FAnGR Asia project.