Seed Hunter

How can we survive perhaps the greatest danger the world faces - climate change?

'Seed Hunter' will take you on a remarkable journey from the edge of the Australian desert to the heart of the Middle East, to the mountains of Tajikistan with Australian scientist Dr Ken Street and his team of gene detectives on their quest to find ancient seeds whose genes may help save our food from the impact of climate change.

The documentary was screened on ABC1 television on 21 October 2008.

The documentary has been entered in several international and national film festivals, and to date it has received the following accolades.

• Winner, Excellence Prize Earth Vision, 17th Tokyo Global Environmental Film Festival
• Winner, Best Documentary, Science, Technology and the Environment, Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM)
• Winner, Best Development Documentary, VAASA Wildlife Film Festival Finland
• Finalist, Best Environment Conservation Documentary, Wild Africa Roscar, South Africa (winner to be announced 19-23 April 2009)
• Finalist, Environment Award, Dragon China Award CICSHP, China (winner to be announced March 2009)
• Invited to enter the American Conservation Film Festival, November 2008

It has also been screened in various countries including Malaysia, Canada (TVO), the United States of America (Smithsonian Channel), Greece, Portugal, Finland (YLE) and Russia.

ACIAR project

The establishment of sustainable national programs covering collection through to preservation has been achieved through a previous ACIAR-ICARDA project (CIM/2000/078). An ACIAR project which builds on the momentum of this work is being undertaken to ensure capacity in Plant Gene Resources (PGR) conservation, and other plant-related research, is entrenched (CIM/2004/004).

See the project link below for more information on the project's scope and outcomes.

Also see:

• Download from http://www.abc.net.au/tv/video/downloads.htm#?vid=PRM0065183seed
• ABC television's page on Seed Hunter http://www.abc.net.au/tv/guide/netw/200810/programs/ZY9145A001D21102008T203000.htm
• A study guide has also been produced and is available from http://www.metromagazine.com.au/studyguides/study.asp