The International Plant Exchange Network (IPEN): An instrument of botanic gardens to fulfil the ABS provisions
Background
Botanic gardens traditionally play a major role in plant science, horticulture and education. In the last decades, they have also become important centres for biodiversity conservation and have acknowledged the need to undertake a global mission for conservation. This was expressed for the first time in The Botanic Gardens Conservation Strategy and refined and updated in the light of the CBD as International Agenda for Botanic Gardens. Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) was considerably involved in the development of the Global Strategy of Plant Conservation (GSPC), that was adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the CBD in 2002. As one of the leading institutions of the Global Partnership for Plant Conservation (GPPC) BGCI takes an active role in the implementation of the Strategy (see also www.plants2010.org).
Over 2000 botanic gardens around the world are cultivating more than 80.000 species, almost one third of the known vascular plant species of the world, and are visited by over 150 million visitors each year: a great chance for conservation and raising public awareness. Being very diverse in size, structure, and organization botanic gardens perform a multitude of different roles in conservation. The major activities range from education, building public awareness and research to ex-situ and in-situ conservation and should be considered as implementation of a number of articles of the CBD (see "Some examples for implementation of the CBD by botanic gardens"). As a result, botanic gardens are actively involved in stemming the loss of plant species and their genetic diversity and heightening the level of awareness of plant diversity, its value and the need for conservation. Capacity building and co-operations amongst botanic gardens are the key to strengthen these efforts.
Some examples for implementation of the CBD by botanic gardens
Ex-situ/in-situ conservation (Art. 8 and 9):
- Rothmannia annae (Wrights Gardenia), a nearly extinct Rubiaceae tree with a tiny remaining population on one of the Seychelles Islands: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, together with Seychelles Botanic Gardens realized a population survey as well as a re-establishing program.
- Sophora toromiro, a legume treelet from the Easter Islands, extinct in the wild: Bonn University Botanic Gardens participated in a reintroduction program.
- Trésor Rainforest Project in French Guyana by BGCI Netherlands, based at Botanic Garden of Utrecht University: Ten years ago an area of 2400 ha was acquired with financial support from sponsors. Soon a Voluntary Nature Reserve was established. Now a local association, which was founded in 1999, cares about a botanical trail, which is visited regularly by primary schools.
Research, training and exchange of information (Art. 12 and 17):
Most of the gardens are tightly joined to research institutions or are research facilities on their own. The research realized is mainly in the fields of systematics and ecology, sometimes in the fields of ethnobotany and horticulture. BGs are an important source for these types of research. The outcomes of this research are made available for the scientific community by joined publications and with training courses.
Public education and awareness (Art. 13)
Public education and awareness is one of the major objectives of botanic gardens. They have an enormous potential as mediators. Especially in urbanized areas, botanic gardens play an important role in children's education. For them botanic gardens are frequently the only place to get into contact with plant diversity.
Generally botanic gardens are perfectly equipped institutions to promote the understanding and enthusiasm for plants. Even subjects like species conservation and the CBD can be transmitted to the public by botanic gardens (e.g., botanika at the Rhododendron park of Bremen: a part of the permanent exhibition is dedicated to the content of the convention).
Benefit-Sharing (Art. 15)
Co-operations of botanic gardens with countries of origin are common. Naturally, they focus on partner gardens in those countries. Sometimes it is pure hardware support with instruments, labels, paperwork etc. Besides that there is an extremely efficient know-how transfer by staff exchange programs. These programs are practiced since decades and are part of the tradition of many botanic gardens. So, examples are numerous. A very recent example of a staff exchange is between Munich and Katse Botanical Garden, a very new garden in the Lesotho Highlands, Lesotho. Botanic gardens not only support partner gardens in mega diverse countries. Sometimes new gardens are established with the help of existing gardens, e.g., the foundation of a new botanic garden in Southern China by Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh
Figure 1: Sources of plant material in botanic gardens: results of a survey in botanic gardens of German speaking countries
The daily work of botanic gardens depends basically on the exchange of plant material between the gardens and on access to plant material from the wild. As shown in a survey led by the Association of Botanic Gardens in German speaking countries (Verband Botanischer Gärten e.V., VBG), international seed exchange is the most important mechanism for acquiring plant material and thereby conserving the ex-situ collections. As shown in Fig. 1, in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria the exchange of plant material between the gardens accounts for nearly 60 % of all the movements, some 12 percent of the plants come from the wild. In the same survey, some 326.000 transactions of seed exchange were counted per year for 95 gardens. International seed exchange has a long-standing tradition, going back to the 18th century. Its purpose has always been mainly non-commercial. This exchange system runs within a more or less closed circuit of botanic gardens and other botanic research organisations and takes place free of charge.
Consequently, botanic gardens are deeply affected by the ABS provisions of the CBD as recipients of genetic resources on the one hand and as institutions supplying plant material on the other hand.
The CBD underlines in its Article 15 the sovereignty of States over their natural resources and their authority to determine access to such genetic resources. According to this article, access shall be on mutually agreed terms (MAT) and be subject to prior informed consent (PIC). The recipients of genetic resources are required to share benefits resulting from its use. However, the article also states that each Contracting Party shall endeavour to facilitate access to genetic resources for environmentally sound uses.
Article 15 particularly aims at the commercial sector and intends to promote a sustainable use of the natural resources. In the course of history, for example during colonial times, botanic gardens have played an important role in commercialisation of plants. They were declared turntables of Plant Genetic Resources, which were to promote the worldwide exchange of economic plants. Actually, in that time some botanic gardens have been founded especially for the import and acclimatisation of tropical plants to Europe (e.g. Rio de Janeiro, Orotava). This role changed fundamentally. As outlined above, research, education and conservation activities are the main tasks of botanic gardens nowadays.
Nevertheless, under the provisions of the CBD botanic gardens have to redefine their position in the worldwide transfer of Plant Genetic Resources, for example the relations to plant enthusiasts, to the pharmaceutical as well as to the agricultural industry. In Germany, this role of botanic gardens has been discussed in 1996 for the first time. These discussions have been the initial point for the development of IPEN (see History of IPEN).
[Next: History of IPEN]