How We Achieve Conservation

Conservation is the main focus of the Garden’s Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development and William L. Brown Center and an important component of other areas of the Garden including the Science and Conservation Division, the Horticulture Division and Shaw Nature Reserve, and the Education and Sustainability programs. We give particular emphasis to documenting and understanding plant diversity by discovering and classifying plants and studying their distributions and relationships over space and time. Our work in conservation includes species conservation and recovery programs (both in the United States and internationally), assessments of the risk status of species, and habitat restoration. Through innovative research Garden scientists are developing methods to conserve plant diversity at scales ranging from genes to plant populations to entire ecosystems. To help ensure the sustainable use of plant diversity, we focus on documenting, conserving, and repatriating traditional knowledge, an essential aspect of conservation, in countries such as Bolivia, Madagascar, Peru, and Vietnam. In several regions we work to advance plant conservation by collaborating in community-based initiatives that integrate conservation of endangered species and ecosystem management/recovery with community development, poverty alleviation, and the creation of greater socio-economic incentives for conserving plant diversity. Vital to much of our work in support of the GSPC is capacity building through strengthening institutions internationally and training botanical scientists, ecologists, and plant conservationists at undergraduate, graduate, post-graduate, and other levels. The development of close collaborative partnerships between the Garden and institutions and organizations in the countries in which we work is a fundamental principle and practice of all Garden international programs.

The Missouri Botanical Garden is a member of Botanic Gardens Conservation International, the Global Partnership for Plant Conservation, the Center for Plant Conservation, and the Consortium of Scientific Partners of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

 

Conservation in Action