Press Release

Kew's Millennium Seed Bank Marks International Biodiversity Day

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew will mark International Biological Diversity Day on 22 May at the Millennium Seed Bank with Barry Gardiner, Minister for Biodiversity, Landscape and Rural Affairs and Ambassadors from Millennium Seed Bank Project (MSBP) partner countries including representatives from Tanzania, Malawi, Madagascar and China. The Minister will lead an official ceremony to mark the banking of the MSBP's billionth seed, which was presented to the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, on 26 April.

RBG Kew's Millennium Seed Bank Project is widely regarded as one of the most ambitious conservation projects in the world. Conceived after the first Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, the MSBP is based on the three central tenets of the Convention on Biological Diversity: conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits. Today, the MSBP holds the largest wild seed collection in the world and works with over 100 partner organisations in 50 countries forming a global network to provide an effective, low-cost insurance against the loss of species in their natural environments due to threats that include the effects of climate change, the theme of this year's International Biological Diversity Day.

Banking the billionth seed in the vaults of Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, Barry Gardiner, said: “I'm delighted to be here today to mark the banking of the billionth seed in Kew 's Millennium Seed Bank. It is an amazing statistic, and an achievement to be really proud of.

“Kew 's Millennium Seed Bank must be one of the most significant conservation projects ever. It is a global insurance policy against the loss of uniquely valuable plant species through land pressures or dangerous climate change."

Current predictions estimate that many plant species may become extinct as a result of climate change. Kew's Millennium Seed Bank already contains the seeds of more than 18,000 wild plant species from 126 countries with duplicate collections in partner seed banks world wide. This includes 88% of the total UK flora, including those facing the most threat from climate change. By 2010, 10% of the world's wild flowering plant species (totalling 30,000 species) will be banked, with priority given to those that are endangered, endemic or of current local use or potential economic use.

Predicted impacts of further temperature rises include increasing threats to human wellbeing including water and food shortages. Kew's Millennium Seed Bank Project currently focuses on dryland regions particularly sub-Saharan Africa where local populations, among the poorest of the world, are particularly vulnerable to desertification and other climate threats. Kew's Millennium Seed Bank Project works with international partners to conserve plants, and enable their use in agriculture, horticulture, forestry and habitat restoration – all essential elements in human adaptation to climate change.

The conservation and repair of habitats can reduce the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere and conserving certain species, such as drought resistant crop wild relatives can reduce the impacts of famine or other climate-related impacts. At the same time, conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity can strengthen ecosystem resilience, improving the ability of ecosystems to provide critical services in the face of increasing climatic pressures.

Professor Stephen Hopper, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, said: ‘We are committed to inspiring and delivering science-based plant conservation worldwide, enhancing the quality of life. Kew's Millennium Seed Bank Project is a key part in our global partnership programme to achieve this outcome.'

Over the past 5 years, over 3,000 seed collections have been used to support research in the key sustainability areas of water, environment, health, agriculture and biodiversity. The MSBP team is heavily involved with capacity building; seed conservation facilities have been installed in 10 African countries and 1,200 people worldwide have been trained in applied seed conservation techniques. With Defra and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, the MSBP is currently working with agricultural seed banks in 29 sub-Saharan countries to develop methodologies that will enable the sustained use of c. 220 plant species that are important to local communities.

Kew's Millennium Seed Bank has the capacity to store seeds from half of the world's wild plant species, and each one of these seeds has the potential to become a plant. Despite its achievements and enormous potential for future conservation, the project has limited funding post 2010. Given adequate funding, Kew's Millennium Seed Bank Project, working with its international partners, aims to have collected and banked seed from 25% of the world's plant species by 2020.

Speaking about RBG Kew's Millennium Seed Bank Project recently, Gordon Brown said, ‘There can be nothing more important than discussing the future of our environment: the conservation; the sustainability of it; and the equity to all the countries and peoples of the world... what you are doing is preserving the planet and what you are doing is making sure that people can enjoy the planet in the right way in years to come.'

Ends

Information and Images

Please contact Anna Quenby, Catherine Owen or Oliver Basciano in the RBG, Kew Press Office. Telephone 020 8332 5607. E-mail pr@kew.org. For access to Wakehurst Place and the Millennium Seed Bank please contact Sharon Buckley. Telephone 01444 894018. E-mail Sharon.buckley@kew.org.

Please visit www.kew.org/msbp for further information about the Millennium Seed Bank Project.

Images are available at www.kew.org/press/images/wakehurst. Please contact the press office for username and password to download high resolution images.

Visitor information: http://www.kew.org/visitor/aboutwp.html / 01444 894000.

Notes to Editors

The Millennium Seed Bank is the largest wild plant seed bank in the world, owned and managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and located at Wakehurst Place, RBG Kew's site in West Sussex. The Millennium Seed Bank Project is one of the most ambitious conservation projects in the world. Conceived after the first Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, the Millennium Seed Bank Project was based on the three central tenets of the Convention on Biological Diversity: conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits. By 2010, RBG Kew and its partners will have collected and conserved seed from 10% of the world's wild flowering plant species (c.30,000 species). The Millennium Seed Bank has the capacity to store up to half the world's wild flowering plant species and already holds 88% of the UK 's flora, including more than 75% of its threatened plant species. Species for collection and conservation are prioritised by Kew 's partners, all are endangered, rare and of potential economic value. The Millennium Seed Bank's visitor centre extends educational outreach and has given hundreds of thousands of the visiting public, including school groups, an opportunity to learn more the project and the importance of conservation. The Millennium Seed Bank Project has been made possible with generous funding from the Millennium Commission, the Wellcome Trust and Orange plc and other donors. The Millennium Seed Bank has no secured funding beyond 2010. For further information please visit www.kew.org/msbp.

MSBP Targets and Funding.

The 2020 target is 75,000 species, a quarter of the wild plant species in the world.

The 2010 target is 30,000 species, with a further 45,000 species to be collected by 2020.

£100 million is needed to fund the project from 2010 to 2020.

This equates to £2,000 per species.

The Millennium Seed Bank has no secured funding beyond 2010.

The Billionth Seed

The billionth seed is from an African bamboo, Oxytenanthera abyssinica, and was collected in Mali, West Africa by the MSBP partner institution in Mali, the Institut d'Economie Rurale. Within Mali, and other sub-Saharan African countries, this bamboo is used for house construction, furniture, basket and wine making. The bamboo is valuable to local people but over-harvesting has led to the species becoming endangered in Mali. The species is a priority for conservation for a number of reasons: its natural habitat is under increasing threat, it is a very useful plant, and it sets seed only once every seven years. Like many bamboo species, the flowering and fruiting of Oxytenanthera abyssinica is synchronised across the region, so that all the plants flower, fruit and then die back within a single year. This phenomenon has led to the superstition in Mali that the fruiting of the bamboo is a bad omen for kings, conquerors and chiefs. It last seeded in 2006. The Millennium Seed Bank now holds several thousand seeds from this species, which will be used for conservation research both at the Millennium Seed Bank and in Mali.

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a world famous scientific organisation, internationally respected for its outstanding living collection of plants and world-class herbarium as well as its scientific expertise in plant diversity, conservation and sustainable development in the UK and around the world. Kew Gardens is a major international visitor attraction and its 132 hectares of landscaped gardens attract over one million visitors per year. Kew was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July 2003 and represents over 250 years of historical landscape. For further information please visit www.kew.org.

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