Founded in 1959, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) is located at 21º55' N, 101º15'E, covering an area of 900 ha. Over 10 thousand species of tropical plants are well preserved in its 34 living collections.
XTBG is a comprehensive research institution engaged in biodiversity conservation and sustainable uses of plant resources, focusing on forest ecosystem ecology, conservation biology and resource plant development. Facilities available for scientific research include two national field research stations (Xishuangbanna Tropical Rainforest Ecosystem Station, and Ailaoshan Station for Forest Ecosystem Studies); laboratories for Biogeochemistry, Molecular Biology & Biotechnology, Plant Phylogenetics & Conservation Biology, Physiological Ecology; a Germplasm Bank for Rare & Endangered Plants; and a Herbarium of Tropical Plants, etc. Aside from the headquarter in Xishuangbanna, an important division has been setup in Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan Province.
Currently, XTBG has recruited with 260 staff members, including 164 scientific researchers and technical personnel. There are 47 senior researchers, 161 postgraduate students (47 of them are doctoral candidates) and postdoctoral or visiting scientists.
Since its establishment, XTBG has accomplished 698 scientific research projects; 13 important achievements were awarded ministerial or provincial prizes. Since the implementation of Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, 17 monographs and 829 scientific papers have been published, 91 of them were published on internationally peer-reviewed journals; national patents were awarded to 11 scientific innovations.
International collaborations have been established with botanical gardens, universities, academic research institutions in more than 50 countries/regions and international organizations, and more than 20 cooperative agreements on various kinds of cooperative activities have been signed with collaborators. In recent years, XTBG has successfully organized and hosted a series of important international conferences. More than 10 well-known experts and scholars in the world have become XTBG’s honorary professors.