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NEWS RELEASE
Media Contacts:Dr. William S. Dvorak, 919/515-6426 or [email protected]
Kevin Potter, NC State News Services, 919/515-3470 or [email protected]
Sept. 20, 2000
NC State Forestry Program Conserves Endangered Tropical Tree Species
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Overcutting and clearing for agriculture could eliminate hundreds of rare tropical and subtropical tree varieties from their native habitats. But an international forestry program based at North Carolina State University is ensuring that those tree populations won't vanish entirely.
The CAMCORE International Cooperative for Gene Conservation and Tree Improvement has worked for 20 years to conserve some of the world's most threatened tropical and subtropical tree species. Its approach is unique: It aims to save tree species and varieties by making them economically important.
"We have found that in every country where we work, local farmers and the private sector are more willing to protect and conserve species if they know there is some economic reason for doing so," explains Dr. William Dvorak, CAMCORE director and NC State professor of forestry. "That is why CAMCORE has succeeded where many other international efforts have failed. We always try to find a use for what we work with."
Among CAMCORE's success stories are the subtropical pine species Pinus tecunumanii and Pinus maximinoi, both native to Mexico and Central America. The program was the first to study the species, and found that, when planted in Brazil, Colombia and South Africa, they grow 20 to 30 percent faster than trees currently raised on forest plantations in those places. CAMCORE is now working with its partners to further improve the species' growth and wood quality.
"We hope that if these species are someday used in plantation forestry, that they will take pressure off cutting native forests in these respective countries," Dvorak says. And, he adds, if the species disappear from their native habitat, they can be reintroduced from the CAMCORE plantings.
Since its founding in 1980, CAMCORE, which stands for Central America and Mexico Coniferous Resources, has evolved beyond its original geographic region. It now has members representing industry, government, academia and private citizens in 15 countries in the Americas, Africa and Asia.
CAMCORE staff from NC State explore remote tropical and subtropical regions where tree species are threatened by human activities. Once CAMCORE foresters identify those tree species and varieties, they collect seeds from the trees and plant them in field trials and conservation areas elsewhere around the world. These "zoos for trees," as Dvorak calls them, ensure that the trees' gene pools don't disappear when their native forests are overlogged or cleared for agriculture.
In two decades, CAMCORE has collected seeds from nearly 10,000 tropical and subtropical trees, and used them to establish 4,500 acres of field trials in 10 different countries. Over a series of years, CAMCORE foresters measure how fast the planted trees grow, assess their wood quality, and determine their resistence to diseases, drought and cold. After that data is analyzed, species and varieties with commercial potential are improved through traditional forestry breeding methods.
Over the last 20 years, CAMCORE has studied 36 pine and broadleaf species from the tropics and subtropics, further divided into 400 genetically distinct populations. Of those populations, 20 percent are considered critically endangered in their native habitat, 20 percent are endangered, 50 percent are vulnerable to increasing cutting and 10 percent are at low risk of disappearing.
Information about each of the "mother trees" in the wild, and the performance of their offspring in field trials is stored in a database at NC State, which is the world's largest database on tropical and subtropical pines. That database helped earn CAMCORE a reputation as an international model of forest gene conservation.
The program's gene conservation efforts are especially important, considering that 60 percent of the 10,000 CAMCORE "mother trees" are gone -- cut down by local woodcutters and farmers. "The genes from these trees only exist in CAMCORE field plantings," Dvorak says.
CAMCORE's work is also helping to maintain native stands of endangered tree varieties. Recently, for instance, Dvorak and his colleagues discovered four new populations of Pinus jaliscana, a rare pine species native only to the mountains near Jalisco, Mexico. CAMCORE collected seeds from the nine known populations for conservation plantings in Brazil, Colombia and South Africa. At the same time, NC State researchers are working to determine which of the populations are more genetically diverse, so that CAMCORE can help local officials in Jalisco conserve the native stands containing the most biodiversity.
"Conservation of forest species is a global issue," Dvorak explains. "CAMCORE's role is to make sure that future generations have the opportunity to see, enjoy and use these species."
-- potter --
NOTE TO EDITORS: Media representatives are invited to attend CAMCORE's 20th anniversary celebration at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 26, at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh. Speakers at the celebration dinner are Dr. William Dvorak, director of CAMCORE; J. Jurado Blanco of Venezuela, chairman of the CAMCORE advisory board; Dr. Kermit Hall, provost of NC State University; and Dr. Larry Tombaugh, dean of NC State's College of Natural Resources.
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