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Journal of Botanic Gardens Conservation International Volume 7 • Number 1 • January 2010 Ex situ conservation the value of plant collections Volume 7 • Number 1 EDITORIAL 02 EDITORS 15 THE CONSERVATION OF CACTI AND SUCCULENTS IN BOTANIC Suzanne Sharrock Sara Oldfield GARDENS Director of Global Secretary General 03 Programmes A RE-EVALUATION OF THE ROLE OF EX SITU CONSERVATION IN THE FACE OF CLIMATE CHANGE Cover Photo : Aeonium spp. (BGCI) Design : John Morgan, Seascape E-mail: [email protected] BGjournal is published by Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) . It is published twice a year and is sent to all BGCI members. Membership is open to all interested individuals, institutions and organisations that support the aims of BGCI (see inside back cover for Membership 18 application form). Further details available from: GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR BGCI PLANT UPLOAD • Botanic Gardens Conservation International, Descanso House, 199 Kew Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3BW UK. Tel: +44 (0)20 8332 5953, Fax: +44 (0)20 8332 5956 E-mail: [email protected], www.bgci.org • BGCI-Russia, c/o Main Botanical Gardens, Botanicheskaya st., 4, Moscow 127276, Russia. Tel: +7 (095) 219 6160 / 5377, Fax: +7 (095) 218 0525, E-mail: [email protected], www.bgci.ru • BGCI-Netherlands, c/o Delft University of Technology Julianalaan 67, NL-2628 BC Delft, Netherlands Tel: +31 15 278 4714 Fax: +31 15 278 2355 E-mail: [email protected] www.botanischetuin.tudelft.nl 22 • BGCI-Canarias, c/o Jardín Botánico Canario Viera y Clavijo, 07 Apartado de Correos 14, Tafira Alta 35017, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Gran Canaria, Spain. VALUING A NATIONAL SAFEGUARDING EXTINCT Tel: +34 928 21 95 80/82/83, Fax: +34 928 21 95 81, E-mail: [email protected] COLLECTION: WORK IN PLANTS IN EX SITU • BGCI-China, 723 Xingke Rd., Guangzhou 510650 China. PROGRESS AT THE COLLECTIONS Tel:(86)20-37252692. email: [email protected] www.bgci.org/china AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL • BGCI-South East Asia, c/o Registry, Singapore Botanic BOTANIC GARDENS Gardens, 1 Cluny Road, Singapore 259569. • BGCI-Colombia, c/o Jardín Botánico de Bogotá, Jose Celestino Mutis, Av. No. 61-13 – A.A. 59887, Santa Fe de Bogotá, D.C., Colombia. Tel: +57 630 0949, Fax: +57 630 5075, E-mail: [email protected], www.humboldt.org.co/jardinesdecolombia/html/la_red.htm • BGCI-Deutschland, c/o Botanische Gärten der Universität Bonn, Meckenheimer Allee 171, 53115 Bonn, Germany. Tel: +49 2 2873 9055, Fax: +49 2 28731690, E-mail: [email protected] • BGCI(US) Inc, c/o Chicago Botanic Garden, 1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe, Illinois 60022, USA. E-mail: [email protected], www.bgci.org/usa 25 BGCI is a worldwide membership organisation established in 1987. Its mission is to mobilise botanic gardens and engage EX SITU CONSERVATION OF partners in securing plant diversity for the well-being of people and the planet . BGCI is an independent organisation WILD PEAR, PYRUS L. registered in the United Kingdom as a charity (Charity Reg No (ROSACEAE) SPECIES 1098834) and a company limited by guarantee, No 4673175. BGCI is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation in the AT THE YEREVAN BOTANIC USA and is a registered non-profit organisation in Russia. 12 GARDEN, ARMENIA Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the Boards or staff of BGCI or of its THE PRICE OF CONSERVATION: members MEASURING THE MISSION AND RESOURCES 29 ITS COST BGCI • 2010 • BGjournal • Vol 7 (1) 01 EDITORIAL: EX SITU CONSERVATION – THE VALUE OF PLANT COLLECTIONS he United Nations has declared and Stuart Harrop point out the role of ex (COP) in October. To ensure that the 2010 to be the International Year of situ conservation is one of the aspects of work of your garden is included in the TBiodiversity calling on the world biodiversity conservation that would report, we urge you to follow the leaders and all in a position to help, to benefit from re-evaluation in the light of example provided by Abby Hird and take action to safeguard the variety of climate change. The CBD considers ex Michael Dosmann (p18) and submit your life on earth. Throughout the year there situ measures to be valid when collection information for inclusion in the will be a focus on the 2010 Biodiversity complimentary to in situ conservation, PlantSearch database. We are also Target. Adopted by the Convention on with the ecosystem approach the conducting a survey on the ways in Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2002 this prevailing paradigm. Now with the which botanic gardens are implementing Target set out to significantly reduce the threats to biodiversity increasing and the GSPC as a whole and will be rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010. action on the ground inadequate, presenting the results of this at the Overall it has scarcely been achieved but perhaps we need to ensure that all wild Fourth Global Botanic Gardens for the botanic garden community, 2010 plant species are backed up in well- Congress to be held in Dublin in June. will also be the year that we celebrate documented ex situ collections, and If you have not yet completed the the significant achievements of the available for restoration programmes. questionnaire – please do so. Links to it Global Strategy for Plant Conservation We should be increasingly linking the can be found on the BGCI website’s (GSPC). Outcomes of this Strategy two approaches and not emphasising homepage. directly support the overall 2010 Target. the distinctions. The revised GSPC with its targets for Sadly there is little evidence that the rate In 2002, a global review of ex situ 2011-2020 will be debated and hopefully of loss of biodiversity has been reduced conservation, noted that, Botanical accepted by all Parties to the CBD at since 2002. In fact with greater gardens maintain the largest assemblage their meeting in October, where BGCI awareness of the impact of climate of plants species outside nature, but no plans to have a strong presence. Thank change, predictions based on modelling overall assessment of the diverse array you to all who have helped us in our suggest that the rate of loss of has been conducted. Even though they regional workshops to review the GSPC biodiversity will significantly increase. contain a large proportion of the world's and to discuss the way forward. Perhaps it is time to re-think our flora, the gardens have traditionally not approaches to biodiversity been integrated, and their holdings have We look forward to seeing many of you conservation? A greater sense of been known only locally . (Keller et al , in Dublin. urgency is certainly needed and ways 2002 ). Target 8 of the GSPC calls for 60 must be found to involve more people in percent of threatened plants to be in ex Happy New Year! tackling the issues. Most people know situ collections. BGCI developed the what they can personally do to cut PlantSearch database to help monitor carbon emissions and help (in a small progress towards this target on a global way) to address climate change - not so scale, thus addressing the issues noted for stemming the loss of biodiversity. by Keller et al . At least 40 percent of The connections between these two big globally threatened plant species are Sara Oldfield issues, climate change and biodiversity now known to be in ex situ collections. Secretary General, BGCI loss need to be made more explicitly, Various articles in this issue draw on with of course, plants at the core of the data from the global PlantSearch debate. database. This issue of BGjournal focuses on the During 2010 BGCI will be preparing a role of botanic gardens in ex situ report on the role of botanic gardens in 1Chances and limitations of ex-situ conservation of conservation. Are we doing enough and ex situ conservation to be presented at species and genetic diversity on a global perspective, T. Keller, H. Korn, H. Schmid, Ch.F. Weisser, are we doing it well? As Diana Pritchard the CBD Conference of the Parties Landwirtschaftsverlag, 2002. 02 BGCI • 2010 • BGjournal • Vol 7 (1) • 02 Authors: Diana J. Pritchard and Stuart R. Harrop A RE-EVALUATION OF THE ROLE OF EX SITU CONSERVATION IN THE FACE OF CLIMATE CHANGE Will conservationists need to change their approach as climate change limits our ability to conserve species in the wild? n situ and ex situ conservation have strategies. Similarly, global policies and been established as two distinct strategies emphasise the role of in situ , Iapproaches to the protection of “wild” and regard the use of ex situ methods as biodiversity with ex situ approaches subsidiary. This is the case with the relegated to a subsidiary position. In this Global Strategy for Plant Conservation article, we explore whether ex situ where the requirement is to: conservation should still be subordinated in this manner, particularly employ in situ conservation in view of climate change models which predict the extinction of species and “measures as the primary approach drastic, rapid and chaotic shifts in the for conservation, complementing distribution of habitats and species Hedychium species invading a hillside in the Azores across the globe. them where necessary with ex situ measures. habitats. In the context of rapid climate The prevalence of in situ and change this fixed geographical approach ex situ as its complement ” may be their weakness. The in situ focus derives primarily from The in situ paradigm has predominated, scientific considerations regarding the Importantly, this in situ conservation work and since the 1992 Earth Summit at Rio conservation and ecosystem benefits has been institutionalised through myriad has been designated, expressly, as the understood to accrue from the protection public and private organisations and legal and institutional priority.