Musa lolodensis

New Guinea's rainforests are being logged, cleared, and converted at a rapid rate due to timber extraction, subsistence agriculture, and expansion of industrial agriculture, with a further threat posed by the mining industry. Between 1972 and 2002, Papua New Guinea lost more than five million hectares of forest; since 2002, a further 2% of the country's primary forest has been lost (Butler 2006, Mongabay 2019). Across Halmahera Utara and Halmahera Barat regencies, there has been a loss of tree coverage between 5 and 10% between 2001 and 2018 with commodity-driven deforestation and shifting agriculture the major drivers (GFW 2019). However, the specific impact of deforestation on members of the Musa genus is somewhat difficult to quantify: while clear-felling or land conversion is likely to be detrimental to the species, wild bananas spring up in transient, often man-made, habitats and thus may benefit from human disturbance to some extent (Simmonds 1962). Felling of trees along narrow stretches of roadside may actually provide suitable habitat for some Musa species (Kiew 1987) and M. lolodensis has been observed growing along roadsides (Argent et al. #613). However, in another part of its range it has been observed growing abundantly in the undisturbed Bewani-Torricelli chain of mountains (Argent 1976). Further research into threats to the species may beneficial to better understand how the species responds to disturbance and to identify whether any threats, named or unidentified, pose a more significant risk.

The genus Musa is listed in Annex I of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) which aims to guarantee sustainable agriculture and food security through the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, as well as ensuring the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of their use (FAO 2009). There are 12 M. lolodensis germplasm accessions of wild origin held worldwide; six of these accessions were collected in Maluku, three in Papua New Guinea and three are of unknown origin. Five are held by the Indonesia Centre for Horticultural Research and Development (ICHORD); three by the Bioversity International Musa Germplasm Transit Centre (ITC) in Belgium, and one is held by each of the Centre africain de recherche sur bananes et plantains (CARBAP) in Cameroon, the Institute of Fruit Tree Research, Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences (IFTR/GDAAS) in China, the Embrapa Mandioca e Fruticultura Tropical in Brazil, and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF), South Johnstone in Australia (Ruas et al. 2017, Genesys Global Portal on Plant Genetic Resources 2019). One botanical garden is listed as a site of ex situ conservation for this species (BGCI 2019). This species is not known to have been collected from within any protected areas but it has been recorded in close proximity to the Lorentz National Park and the Pegunungan Arfak Nature Reserve, and its range overlaps with multiple other protected areas (Protected Planet 2019); if it occurs within any of these protected areas, passive conservation is presumed.