ABSTRACT
Within the equatorial region, rain forest covers more than 40 per cent of the land, providing a rich sanctuary for both flora and fauna. Rain forests are priceless reservoirs of plant germplasm and play a vital role in maintaining global environment stability (see also Viana et al., Chapter 18, this volume). The composition, structure and ecology of natural forests, with their large array of plant and animal species is very complex and still remains to be fully understood. Malaysia, as one of the top 12 countries in the megadiversity league, consists of 0.2 per cent of the world’s land area but is estimated to harbour more than 2800 species of trees (Saw, 1992) or 6 per cent of the world’s flowering plant species. A majority of the rain forest species, especially timber trees, produce recalcitrant seeds. The importance and difficulty of conserving recalcitrant seeded species are well recognized. In recent years, awareness over the loss of plant diversity has captured worldwide attention. Though several conservation activities of plant genetic resources have been performed, they are very labour intensive and complex and encompass various tasks such as germplasm collection, storage and evaluation. Germplasm conservation has become necessary for future sustainable harvesting systems and as a means of maintaining species diversity to prevent genetic erosion. Presently, whilst recalcitrant species can be conserved in situ in national parks and forest reserves, some have been taken out of their natural habitat and conserved ex situ in aboreta and botanic gardens. In the field of biotechnology, many other complementary methods for ex situ conservation have been explored, including cryopreservation (see Benson, Chapter 6, this volume). According to Ahuja (1991), the success of biotechnological approaches is largely dependent upon three factors: • The ability of germplasm to survive storage treatments (i.e. dehydration/desiccation,
low and ultra low temperature stress). • In vitro morphogenetic competence. • The development of widely applicable, routine and economically viable conservation
methods. Biotechnology therefore, has the potential for application in crop improvement and genetic resource management programmes. Among other reasons for conservation is the
need for providing a continuous supply of seeds and seedlings for the various planting programmes. The current trend the world over is to establish forest plantations in order to reduce the logging impact on natural forests with greater emphasis towards the conservation of the existing biodiversity. In fact, one of the major constraints with tropical forest management is the availability of good quality seeds. For the establishment of successful forest plantations there is a need for quality planting materials that are selected from elite mother trees in order to produce seedlings that have improved survival and produced greater economic returns.
