Professor Charles Sheppard has been awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List 2014 for services to environmental conservation in the British Indian Ocean Territory.

The well-deserved award recognizes nearly 40 years of research in the Chagos Archipelago. During this time, Charles has facilitated studies by over 100 scientists and generated a large volume of publications. This scientific input led to the creation of the world's largest marine reserve, totaling more than 640,000 square kilometres (397,678 square miles), an area more than twice the size of the UK. The Chagos Archipelago has been designated as a fully no-take marine reserve and is of huge value to the Indian Ocean and its people.

In addition to working in the School of Life Sciences, Charles is Chairman of the Chagos Conservation Trust, and works for a range of UN, Governmental and aid agencies in tropical marine and coastal development issues. He advises several governments on marine and coastal management and science, including the UK Government on its tropical Overseas Territories. For 10 years he was also science adviser to the Commissioner in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the archipelago.

Relevant links:
Charles Sheppard
Chagos Marine reserve 

Warwick Crop Centre at the University of Warwick has won a five year contract from Defra to continue to host the UK Vegetable Genebank at the University’s Wellesbourne campus.

The Genebank is an internationally significant collection of almost 14,000 seed samples from different vegetable crops including carrot onion, lettuce cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli and closely related wild species.

The collection represents the genetic diversity in the genepool of each crop, and is a vital resource for researchers and plant breeders across the world.

'Vegetables are an important component of a healthy diet and the seed resources within the Genebank will support the development of new and improved varieties in the future', said Dr Charlotte Allender who leads the Vegetable Genebank project.

BBC's David Gregory visited the Warwick Crop Centre to film activities in the GRU (Genetic Resources Unit). The film is now available on You Tube at http://youtu.be/b9AmQ8wZvKg

Useful links:
Warwick Crop Centre
Genetic Resources Unit