Event description
To many of their visitors, botanic gardens are beautiful places to visit and not much else. In fact, botanic gardens are centres of learning for the way that people interact with plants, and are already contributing their expertise to solving the big environmental challenges. These include: developing more resilient productive landscapes; climate change mitigation and adaptation; preventing loss of biodiversity; restoring degraded habitats; improving human mental and physical wellbeing, and; providing mentoring and guidance on sustainable living. This talk will explore how the gardens of the future can scale up this vital work, and how impact can be achieved at scale.
About the speaker:
Dr Paul Smith CMG FLS is the former Secretary General of Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), the largest botanic garden network in the world, comprising >950 member institutions in 120 countries. Paul joined BGCI as Secretary General in February 2015. Prior this, Paul was Director of Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank for nine years. Paul trained as a plant ecologist, and is a specialist in the plants and vegetation of southern Africa. He is a Trustee of the National Botanic Garden of Wales and the International Dendrology Society, and is Co-Chair of IUCN’s Plant Conservation Committee.
