Steve Hopper, BBC Green Room 13 Oct 09;
Conserving genetic diversity in botanic gardens and seed banks is a sensible and practical precaution for an uncertain future, says Steve Hopper. With species loss at an unnatural high and with climate change threatening many ecosystems, he argues that the need to invest in these facilities has never been greater.
Kew, like other botanic gardens around the world, provides inspiration, enjoyment, tranquillity and learning to millions of visitors of all ages and cultural backgrounds.
But in a time of ever-increasing environmental challenges, including massive loss of biodiversity and climate change, the role of botanic gardens is much wider.
Collectively, we have the knowledge and expertise to make a very real and positive difference to biodiversity conservation around the world.
In the lead-up to the United Nations' International Year of Biological Diversity in 2010, and as we approach the UN's critical climate conference in Copenhagen in just a few weeks, it is clear that the challenges we face and the potential of botanic gardens to help solve these challenges through science-based plant conservation have never been greater.
As the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew celebrates its 250th anniversary, we are assessing how best we can use our tremendous resources to address the critical environmental issues of our time for the sake of our own well-being and for future generations.
It is one of the world's greatest collections of information relating to wild plants (including living plants, preserved specimens, plant DNA, seeds, library, art, archives and economic botany) as well as the knowledge, expertise and partnerships developed over our 250-year history.
As the UN-backed study The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) begins to put a value on natural capital - the forests, deserts, oceans, rivers, animals and plants that we rely on in a million ways - it is critical that we halt the squandering of these precious resources.
Essential growth
Plants absorb carbon and provide oxygen, thereby providing air we can breathe and helping to regulate the climate.
They provide food, medicine, shelter, clean water and fertile soil.
Plant diversity is invaluable to humanity; it sustains us now, and in the future it will enable us to adapt, innovate and ultimately to survive.
Kew's response to the increasingly urgent need to address environmental challenges including climate change is outlined in the Breathing Planet programme.
With the ultimate objective of a world where plant diversity is conserved, restored and more sustainably used to improve the quality of human lives, the Breathing Planet programme will be achieved through seven strategies that:
• accelerate targeted scientific discovery of plant and fungal diversity and make information on plant diversity much more readily accessible
• help identify species and regions most at risk in terms of plant and fungal diversity loss
• contribute to conservation programmes on the ground
• secure 25% of the world's plants in seed banks by 2020, and enable the sustainable use of seeds for human benefit
• accelerate the science of restoration ecology and enhance global networks involved in repair of the Earth using plant diversity
• bring a new focus to the use of local plants for local people in agricultural and urban lands
• ensure that Kew uses its World Heritage collections and gardens to engage with visitors on site and online across the world in devising new ways of sustainable living through plant-based solutions, science, conservation and community involvement.
At the heart of this future vision is Kew's Millennium Seed Bank partnership.
Described by Sir David Attenborough as "perhaps the most ambitious conservation initiative ever", the partnership will announce on 15 October the banking and conservation of 10% of the world's plant species.
This enormous achievement has been accomplished with over 120 partners in 54 countries.
This truly global partnership has delivered ambitious conservation targets on time and under budget.
Key collection
Kew's Millennium Seed Bank is a unique, global asset. It is the largest facility of its kind in the world and contains the world's most diverse seed collections.
Over the past 10 years, more than 3.5 billion seeds from 25,000 species have been collected and stored in their country of origin and in Kew.
Species are chosen by country partners according to whether they are rare or endangered or of particular potential use - for example as medicine, food, animal fodder or shelter.
This collection addresses concerns about human adaptation to climate change highlighted in the Stern Review, and has the potential to make a major contribution to the delivery of the Millennium Development Goals.
Kew's Millennium Seed Bank partnership is a tangible first step in bringing the enormous wealth of expertise in the world's foremost plant science institutions to bear on the major environmental challenges of the 21st Century, including food security and sustainable energy as well as loss of biodiversity and climate change.
The significance and value of the partnership grows daily, and this remarkable collaboration provides a real message of hope and steadfast achievement in a world where doom and gloom about the environment is becoming common currency.
This milestone is an inspirational outcome, and all involved in this fine global achievement should be warmly congratulated.
However, there is much more to be done, and Kew's Millennium Seed Bank partnership will grow and develop with the aim of conserving and enabling use of 25% of plant species by 2020.
In addition, we aim to increase capacity on the ground and develop areas relatively new to science, such as restoration ecology to restore degraded habitats.
Despite its achievements, the project is unfunded from 2010 and to achieve its goals, Kew and its partners will need the support of governments, corporations and individuals.
When we lose a species, we have no idea what the scale of that loss truly is.
Every species we conserve has potential value, and there is no technological reason why any plant species should become extinct. It is simply a question of priorities.
Investing a small fraction of the world's financial resources in biodiversity conservation and science over the next few decades would reap irreplaceable long-term rewards.
Professor Stephen Hopper is director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website
