Ecology and Development Series No. 10, 2003 - ZEF

Current state of knowledgeHailu, undated, unpublished proposal). Accordingly, Yayu forest was one of the candidatesites proposed for conservation. However, these efforts have not gone far beyond theproposal stage. In 1998, the Coffee Improvement Project of Ethiopia proposed theestablishment of three C. arabica gene reserves in southwest Ethiopia (Demel et al. 1998;Paulos and Demel 2000). The sites selected were the Berhane-Kontir (ca. 9,000 ha),Boginda-Yeba (ca. 3,000 ha), and Yayu (ca. 10,000 ha) forests. Complementary, ex situconservation in different agro-ecological zones was also proposed. However, little wasdone to practically implement these proposals.The three forest areas proposed as gene reserves were selected based solely ontheir accessibility and consideration of financial constraints regarding the conservation ofmore sites. There are about five forest areas with known occurrences of wild coffeepopulations, which could be equally important for conservation. Additional sites known tohave wild coffee populations include: Amora-Gedel, Dawo-Tobi, Bale mountains,Mankera, and Maji.On-farm and/or homegarden conservationFarm-based conservation involves the maintenance of traditional crop varieties or croppingsystems by farmers within the traditional agricultural systems. On the traditional farms andhomegardens, the land races are sown and harvested. Each season, the farmers keep aproportion of the harvested seed for re-sowing. Thus, the land race is highly adapted to thelocal environment and is likely to contain locally adapted alleles that may prove useful forspecific breeding programs.The overall advantage of this method is that it ensures the maintenance of ancientland races and those wild species dependent on traditional agriculture. However, the landraces may yield less than modern cultivars and the farmers may require subsidizing andpossibly monitoring to ensure continued cultivation. Contemporary economic forces tend toact against the continued cultivation of ancient land races, which are undoubtedly sufferingrapid genetic erosion, if not facing extinction (Dulloo et al. 1998). However, the rate ofgenetic erosion in coffee compared to annual crops is presumed to be lower, since coffee is25