I have to admit, when I first realised I had a trip to Kew Gardens for my Terrestrial Biodiversity and Conservation module, I was only mildly interested. But over 3 days this week, my preconceptions of Kew and what they did was completely overturned, and I have left this field trip with incredible respect and admiration of the work they are doing to protect plant species across the world. The field trip took us behind the scenes at Kew Botanical Gardens to meet the scientists and learn about the different projects Kew supports globally. We also had the chance to walk around the herbarium (brimming with pressed and dried specimens, some of which were hundreds of years old) and the plant nursery (where curators care for around 33,000 species of plants, growing them for scientific study and for display in the botanical gardens). We visited one of three nurseries, which had plants on the floor, the walls and the ceilings, ranging from huge palms and cycads to tiny water lillies, carnivorous plants and orchids as far as the eye could see (these are apparently a flight risk in the main public Botanical Gardens - some collectors can't get enough). I can honestly say I have never been so excited about plants. Yes, PLANTS. Let me tell you something, there is so much more than meets the eye to those green things we see in our back gardens and countryside. They are INCREDIBLE. Some of the adaptations we learnt about are absolutely spectacular, and just by looking at the photos below, you may get a sense of how biodiverse and beautiful they are and why plants are worth protecting. (Apologies for the lack of species names - alas, I am not a botanist! If anyone reading this is, please comment the names below!) This trip was designed to teach us about the ins and outs of Conservation work, but the main thing which has stuck in my mind is that of the 40(ish) MSc Conservation & Biodiversity students on the trip, I don't think any of us had any clue that a whopping 1/5 of all plant species are threatened with extinction around the world. ONE FIFTH. This ignorance to the peril plants are facing mainly stems from the fact that plant protection isn't really talked about in comparison to Animals. I am guilty of this myself. I usually rant about how charismatic megafauna always gets the attention when we should really be focusing Conservation efforts on those species which are lesser known, but it hadn't crossed my mind that plants have it worse. How naive I and many others are, for of course, no animal can survive without plants first. We heard from experts about the problems this causes with their Conservation efforts. In particular, about a partnership with the Natural History Museum, where Kew conducted a Global Assessment of the state of the world's plants; Plants Under Pressure. It was here that the figure of 1/5 appeared, as well as the concern that over 33% of the estimated 380,000 plant species 'are so poorly understood that we still don't know if they are endangered or not'. No prizes for guessing why plants are dying out: Of course, it's us. Humans. All the effects of Agriculture, Harvesting, Logging, Disturbance, Pollution, Mining and Invasive species (to name a few) are catching up with us and account for 81% of the threats to plant species. Whilst this is incredibly disturbing, our lectures this week taught us about the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, where the main aim is to halt the current and continuing loss of plant diversity globally. So what are Kew doing to combat this? Many things, actually. Here are a few initiatives we learnt about:
Of course, this is no where near the full extent of their work, but it was incredibly inspiring to hear that many of their projects have been successful. There is still a very long way to go to meet targets set for 2020, and this is a little disheartening, but after meeting these experts (who seemed to know everything about every plant ever) I have every faith that Kew will continue to achieve the goals they set themselves in the future. Here's some more photos of the field trip, and please do visit Kew Gardens to support their amazing work.
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