With this level of state of knowledge on indigenous animal geneticresources developed over the years, it is increasingly important todocument them in a comprehensive publication that can be used atnational and international level as reference guide for knowing theintricacy of the breed or population structure of each of the availablebreed or population. There is no law at present unlike plants such asPlant Variety and Farmer’s Right Protection Act, 2001 or Wild Life Actthat can provide the legal support in case of global dispute on IPRissues developed from animal genetic resources. However, due topassing of National Biodiversity Act, 2002, there is some sort ofregulations on exchange of animal germplasm across the countries.Further, unlike European countries there is no breed societies or breedsurvival trusts that not only register the pure bred germplasm but alsoprovide all the logistical support to the animal owners. Keeping allthese complexities in to consideration, we planned to compile all theavailable information on all the well described breeds as well as newerbreeds or populations that are being considered important in animalproduction system of the country.The task of collection of the literature on each of the breed orpopulations along with the quality photographs of the representativebreeding animals both male and female was a Herculean type. We areable to complete the task of bringing the present book “Atlas AnimalGenetic Resources of India”, in this shape because of collective effortsof the authors and tremendous support by our scientist colleagues at theBureau
