ABSTRACT
Community conservation encompasses not only genetic resources such as landraces, folk varieties, cultivars, and breeds, but also ecosystems and landscapes in which sacred species, groves, and landscapes are embodied. There is a growing realization about the biodiversity-cultural diversity link and its importance. Changes in the social values with regard to traditional lifestyles, emerging new economies, livelihoods, and lifestyles have weakened community conservation to a signifi cant extent. There is a pressing need to revitalize on-farm in situ conservation, as it is the key link between traditional knowledge, livelihoods, and lifestyles. Human beings always remained as managers of natural resources, through which they gained knowledge on animals, plants, climate, soil, and water and evolved various techniques and technologies for survival. This process continues to the present time. Communities living in hilly and inaccessible forested regions continue to hold traditional knowledge as well as generate new knowledge for the management of natural resources. It was through centuries of conservation and use by communities across continents that facilitated transfer of plants, such as rubber, tea, coffee, cotton, and groundnut to new locations for human use. The noted Russian scientist N.I. Vavilov undertook theoretical and applied work on economically important plants, to identify center of origin climatic analogies and wild relatives.
