Deputy Liu Qijun: Establish a national biological germplasm resource bank in Central China in Shennongjia

Source: People's Daily - Hubei Channel Original draft

"This year's "Government Work Report" proposes to solve the seed problem and list it separately as a key task." During the two sessions of the National People's Congress, Liu Qijun, deputy to the National People's Congress and mayor of the Shennongjia Forestry District Government in Hubei Province, said that Shennongjia should take the initiative to take the initiative to take the initiative, give full play to the resource advantages of the Shennongjia species gene bank, practice the national germplasm security strategy, build a national germplasm resource bank in Shennongjia, and build a three-level protection system of Shennongjia biological germplasm resources in situ protection area, ex situ protection point, and germplasm resource bank.

Shennongjia is located in the transition zone from the hills of central China to the mountains of western China, with a territory of 3253 square kilometers, a forest coverage rate of 91.1%, is the intersection of biological species in the east, west, south and north of China, one of the 25 biodiversity hotspots in the world, one of the 14 key biodiversity areas of world significance in China, one of the three distribution centers of china's seed plants, one of the first batch of pilot areas of the national park system in China, known as "the lungs of central China, the water tower of central China, and the gene bank of species".

According to the latest statistics, Shennongjia has 4276 species of higher vascular plants in 211 families and 1208 genera, including 205 species endemic to the region, 729 species of terrestrial vertebrates of 36 orders and 129 families and 380 genera; 5406 species of insects, and 663 species of large lichens and fungi. Shennongjia is also the main distribution area of China's local excellent breeds of horse-headed goats, Yunba cattle and Chinese bees, and the "Shennongjia Chinese Medicinal Materials Directory" records that there are 2023 kinds of Chinese medicinal material resources in Shennongjia forest area, providing resource guarantee for the establishment of germplasm resource banks.

Shennongjia has established a series of scientific research platforms and bases such as the Shennongjia National Park Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Forestry, the Shennongjia Science and Technology Innovation Center of Huazhong Agricultural University, and the Hubei Provincial Key Laboratory of Conservation Biology of Shennongjia Golden Snub-nosed Monkey, and has established a long-term and good cooperative research foundation with more than 50 units such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Huazhong Agricultural University, and Wuhan University.

"Shennongjia is pushing for the construction of an animal and plant 'Noah's Ark' and taking good care of these unique seeds." Liu Qijun suggested that supporting the establishment of a central China national biological germplasm resource bank in the Shennongjia Forest Area of Hubei Province should promote the long-term preservation of germplasm resources on the one hand, and use modern biotechnology on the other hand to develop and reserve a batch of high-yielding, high-quality, and stress-resistant "powerful seeds". (Zhang Pei, Yu Ling)