Musa peekelii

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). In both areas, shifting agriculture has been the major driver of tree cover loss. Drivers of permanent deforestation in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, namely urbanisation and commodity-driven deforestation, were only identified as dominant drivers in 3.6% of 10 km grid cells analysed (GFW 2019). It should be noted that 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). Little has been documented about the habitat and ecological preferences of M. peekelii so it is difficult to infer whether the species is tolerant of disturbed habitat. As such, research into the threats affecting the species, as well as its ecological requirements, is recommended.

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 14 M. peekelii germplasm accessions of wild origin held worldwide with 12 collected from Papua New Guinea and two of unknown origin. Seven accessions are held by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF), South Johnstone in Australia, five by the Bioversity International Musa Germplasm Transit Centre (ITC) in Belgium and one by each of the Centre africain de recherche sur bananes et plantains (CARBAP) in Cameroon and the Institute of Fruit Tree Research, Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences (IFTR/GDAAS) in China (Ruas et al. 2017, Genesys Global Portal on Plant Genetic Resources 2019). Two botanical gardens are listed as sites of ex situ conservation for this species (BGCI 2019). This species has been collected from within, or in close proximity to, the 750 km² YUS Conservation Area in Morobe and the Balek Wildlife Sanctuary in Madang (Protected Planet 2019); if it occurs within any of these protected areas, passive conservation is presumed.