Dear Professor Ohmi Ohnishi,

My name is Jinfeng Zhou and I am currently working as the Secretary-General of China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF). I admire your prominent work and tremendous efforts in the Fagopyrum breeding, and your great studies have benefitted lots of people all over the world.

Please allow me to briefly introduce CBCGDF first:

The China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to environmental protection and biodiversity conservation. As a partner with United Nations FAO and Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), the NGO was originated from the Milu reintroduction in 1985. China's leading conservation is with about 50 staff and thousands of registered volunteers. In 2014, we're honored to become a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). With a public fundraising license, we funded hundreds of grassroots NGOs and individuals in past 3 years, and hosted many biodiversity projects and environmental events around the country to aware the people, encourage the people, and empower the people.

Since China acceded to the Nagoya Protocol in September last year, I have been thinking about relevant issues. I visit the Chinese Institution of Agricultural Sciences and talk to the experts, and I would like to discuss the matter with you in this letter.

As internationally renowned experts in Fagopyrum germplasm resources, your team, as well as Korean scientist Sun-hee Woo’s team, used Fagopyrum homotropicum with the self-affinity and self-incompatibility of Fagopyrum hybridization, generated self-affinity offspring Fagopyrum esculentum (homotype) and solved the breeding problem of low fertility caused by self-incompatibility of sweet Fagopyrum.

We noticed that your earliest reports related to Fagopyrum homotropicum appeared at the 6th International Fagopyrum Conference in 1995, and the report was titled “Discovery of New Fagopyrum Species and Its Implication for the Studies of Evolution of Fagopyrum and of the Origin of Cultivated Buckwheat”.

In the report, you mentioned that you found a new wild Fagopyrum species in 1992 in Yongsheng area of Lijiang, Yunnan province, China, and named it Fagopyrum homotropicum ohnishi. Bringing it back to Japan, your cultivation and research generated many uses for the species, and many papers were published to inspire future Fagopyrum breeding scientists.

When the wild species was discovered, it was widely used in the crossbreeding of Fagopyrum in several countries, including Japan (Ohnishi), Canada (Campbell), South Korea (Woo) and Russia (Fesenko). A series of sweet Fagopyrum strains with self-crosslinking affinity and fertile properties were used in field experiments. A total of eight wild Fagopyrum varieties and one near-source Fagopyrum cultivar (subspecies) of cultivated sweet Fagopyrum was widely spread.

There are still a lot of individuals of wild Fagopyrum species left in Yunnan and other southern provinces, and CBCGDF is trying our best to conserve and protect the populations as well as the habitats of those wild species. There are at least two species found seriously endangered.

On this matter, I would like to propose two suggestions for your consideration:

1. According to the Nagoya Protocol Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) principle, could you please advice us to contact the enterprises and scientific institutions which benefit from the related wild Fagopyrum species in Yunnan to provide economic assistance to the impoverished population in the Yunnan village?

2. We are an NGO specializing in the biodiversity conservation and green development. We work with relevant experts in the protection of Fagopyrum and have established the “Community Conservation Area for Fagopyrum” in several areas in China. We sincerely hope you can guide us so that valuable natural resources can be effectively protected and studied.

Thank you very much and I look forward to hearing back from you.

Yours faithfully,

Jinfeng Zhou, Ph.D.

Secretary-General of CBCGDF