Renowned botanists and directors of botanical gardens travelled from across South East Asia to Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) to discuss major tasks of botanical gardens: regional ecological restoration and biodiversity conservation from November 14 to 18.
Dr. Joachim Gratzfeld - Director of BGCI Regional Programmes delivered an opening speech (Image by XTBG)
Dr. Chen Jin delivered a welcome speech (Image by XTBG)
More than 30 botanists and directors from botanical gardens in 12 countries and regions attended the fourth meeting of the South East Asia Botanic Gardens (SEABG), more commonly known as 4th SEABG Director's Meeting.
The 5-day meeting included presentations and group discussions covering such diverse topics as how botanic gardens can support restoration ecology, collection based research in botanical gardens, public education programs, biodiversity and conservation, reintroduction of threatened species, plant diversity studies, opportunities and challenges for botanical gardens, etc.
In addition to the discussion sessions, the representatives visited the rich living collections, the herbarium, seed bank, museum, and tropical rainforest within XTBG. They also had a tour to the 20-ha tropical rainforest dynamics plot in Xishuangbanna.
Visiting XTBG Herbarium (Image by XTBG)
Visiting 20-ha plot (Image by XTBG)
The meeting was welcomed by the attendees as an opportunity to share knowledge and information between botanic gardens, to discuss and refine to provide updates by members on their activities, and bring up topics of common interest and benefit for discussion.
Participants in the meeting came from as far as the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, Philippines, Brunei, and China.
“South East Asia Botanic Gardens (SEABG)” is a regional network of botanical gardens in South East Asia, which was formed in 2004. The general aims of the network are to assist member gardens in capacity building; to make use of the resources in the region; and to improve their overall standards.
