In the summer of 2000, members of
the country agency staff who concentrate on botanical issues agreed
that it would be useful to hold a genetics and conservation
workshop. Initially when genetic techniques were being developed
there was scepticism about their relevance to conservation issues.
Now that useful results are appearing, it was felt it would be
timely to hold a workshop and explore some key issues.
The conservation staff wanted to
find out:
- a basic understanding of the issues
raised by genetics research;
- the techniques and their
limitations;
- the right questions to be
asking.
The genetics researchers wanted to
find out:
- what it was the conservationists
wanted to know;
- how their work might be of relevance
to conservationists;
- how to tease out issues affecting
conservation in their reports having done the work in the lab.
The workshop was designed to cover
these issues in three sessions and the main
recommendations are summarised
within the main body of the document