Editorial – Newsletter 31, August 2006

Editorial from Newsletter 31, August 2006

Are British and Irish gardens serious about conservation?

PlantNetwork’s aim is not simply to organise meetings, but also to promote the individual collections of all gardens as a whole. As a network, our aims and views need to be a shared aspiration. The many hundreds of gardens throughout these islands can only benefit fully if we undertake a combined effort to integrate our collections in some manner. Revising our Strategy Plan will, I hope, focus on some of the more beneficial tasks we can undertake for all our members. There are several specific areas where I believe we can make good headway – we need to share knowledge about our gardens and our plant collections, and we need to ask ourselves whether we are truly serious about conservation, or whether it is simply a label we use to justify our existence.

When PlantNet published the Directory of Botanical Collections in Britain and Ireland in 1999, it was an important contribution to understanding the range and breadth of gardens in these islands. However, even after two requests for updates in the past 2 years, the information on 72 of these gardens (25 of which are members of PlantNetwork) is now 7 years out of date. Without this most basic information, it will be difficult to develop the Directory further. One particular project I wish to get off the ground is a survey of the scientific usage of collections – to produce an index of expertise, products and examples of ways in which living plants from collections have been used for scientific purposes.

A collective collection

Can you point at any plant in your collection and say how significant it is in terms of the total number of plants being grown in other collections around the world? The fact that Metasequoia glyptostroboides is critically endangered in its native valley, or that Cosmos atrosanguineus is extinct in the wild, does not, alas, make your specimens that significant on an international scale. However, there will inevitably be threatened plants in your collection whose significance and importance you may not even be aware of. Few of us have the time to research all the taxa in our care. But, unless others know about the existence of these plants in your collection, what is the point of keeping them? There may be others desperately seeking the plants in your care – you have a duty to let others know. Now there is a remarkably quick and easy way to do it – BGCI’s Plant Search facility. By submitting the list of taxa in your gardens to Botanic Gardens Conservation International, you can ensure that the gardens in these islands take another step towards a networked and shared responsibility for the plants in our care.

Our threatened natives

To date, only 11 gardens have become involved with the Target 8 project. While more than 80 delegates attended the PlantNetwork conservation conferences at Reading in 2004 and at Glasnevin in 2005, and enthusiasm seemed high after each event, what seemed an ideal channel for getting gardens involved in conservation does not seem to be working. One of the great risks of dramatic headlines and shock tactics is that they can cause the opposite reaction – rather than complacency, people decide the problem is too big to overcome, so it simply gets ignored. The reasoning behind the Target 8 Project is that it can, and should be, as small as one or two species per garden. Any greater number and the call on staff time would be too great, since it is not just about growing the species concerned, but becoming fully involved and associated with other (and preferably all) organisations involved in conserving that species. We have secured the agreement of the Millennium Seed Bank at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, in supplying seedlings, and we have pulled together information about how to begin. The action required from you is to select one or two species.

A new Strategy Plan to 2010

The new PlantNetwork Strategy Plan, which will take the organisation through to 2010, was issued in draft form at the AGM at Harrogate in April. Feedback to the Board since then has resulted in a few changes and new ideas that we have now incorporated. The strategy is available on the website (see above), along with the previous strategy plan if you want to see how it has changed. We shall be printing the new strategy in a limited number and hope members will use the website to obtain information. Some new projects we hope to initiate in the near future are …