By Christy Powell, San Diego Zoo
From May 4–6, 2017, San Diego Zoo Global hosted nearly 100 conservation professionals from 27 of the 43 participating institutions of the Center for Plant Conservation (CPC). The CPC is a network of participating botanic gardens and plant conservation organizations throughout the United States. In 2016 it moved its headquarters to San Diego Zoo Global. In addition to participating institutions, several partners and guests were in attendance. These included the U.S. Forest Service, American Public Gardens Association, Botanic Gardens Conservation International, Nature Serve, Institute for Applied Ecology, and the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership-Kew Gardens.
Dr. Joyce Maschinski created an excellent agenda that featured the ever-popular Lightning Talks. Highlights of these presentations focused on conservation genetics, plant propagation and reintroduction efforts, and data analysis and information sharing opportunities. The network brainstorming session on assessing the challenges and opportunities of seed collections and break-out groups provided input for the seed collection protocols that are key to plant conservation.
This year’s annual CPC Star Award, presented to plant conservation professionals for their service to ending plant extinction, was awarded to Joan Yoshioka of the Hawaii Plant Extinction Prevention Program and to Anita Tiller of Mercer Arboretum in Houston, Texas. Congratulations to Joan and Anita. Thank you for inspiring all of us.
About 4,500 of the roughly 18,500 species of plants in the U.S. and Canada are considered to be of conservation concern, with almost 1,000 of them either listed under the federal Endangered Species Act or qualified for listing. Without human intervention, many of them will be gone within the next few decades. The CPC and its partner institutions have become known world-wide as the leaders in saving endangered plants.
CPC network gardens are helping to reduce extinction risk of the rarest plants in North America. In 2016 with funding from National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), the organization collectively made 37 seed collections of 30 globally rare species that occurred on federal lands. These seed collections safeguard the genetic resources of some of the rarest plant populations in the U.S. They provide a resource for future recovery actions and are a safety net against catastrophic loss. All seed collections are stored at the National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation in Ft. Collins, Colorado.
The species collected will become part of the CPC National Collection of endangered species. The network participating institutions are custodians of these species ex-situ. In addition, they contribute to in-situ conservation actions. The 2018 CPC conference will be hosted by the Botanical Research Institute of Texas in Fort Worth, Texas, from April 25 through 28.
