
Conserving the cousins of our crops
Over 12 million seeds from 371 species in 25 countries have been collected to help adapt agriculture to climate change.
Crop Wild RelativesFor opportunities to fund and support this work, please contact us.
Kew’s global seed banking network, the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership (MSBP), is the largest ex situ plant conservation programme in the world.
Our focus is on plant life faced with the threat of extinction and plants of most use for the future.
The most recent State of the World's Plants Report highlighted that 2 in 5 plant species are threatened with extinction. The seeds we save are conserved in seed banks as an insurance against the risk of extinction in their native habitat.
Working with our network of partners across 100 countries and overseas territories, we have successfully banked approximately 15.6% of the world's wild plant species.
Collections are preserved at the Wellcome Trust Millennium Building at Wakehurst and around the world in our partner seed banks.
The collections and the vital associated knowledge enable innovation, adaptation and resilience in agriculture, horticulture, forestry and habitat restoration.
The published MSBP Seed Conservation Standards provide a basis for technology transfer amongst partners and help to assure users of the quality of the seed collections.
Through the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership, we aim to achieve the following:
Examples of major programmes of work that are contributing to these objectives are:
The Garfield Weston Global Tree Seed Bank Programme: to conserve 3,000 of the rarest, most threatened and useful trees and woody shrubs, and to undertake several research programmes to improve our knowledge of tree conservation.
The Arcadia Threatened Biodiversity Hotspot Programme: to secure over 5,000 species from five threatened global biodiversity hotspots
The Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change Project: to collect and conserve seed from more than 350 species of Crop Wild Relatives, facilitating their use in breeding new and improved crops better adapted to climate change.
The targets of the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership help to achieve Target 8 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, one of the Cross-Cutting Issues of the Convention on Biological Diversity. They also contribute towards Targets 2, 13 and 15 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Adapting agriculture to climate change
Threatened Biodiversity Hotspots programme
Data Warehouse
Global Tree Seed Bank programme
Afromontane Plant Conservation
Conserving Ghana’s Threatened and Economically Important Trees
Conserving the Endemic Flora of Ethiopia
Developing a National Seed Collection Programme for Zambia
Developing the National Seed Collection of South Africa
Rescuing degraded habitats and threatened species of Namibia
The National Seed Conservation Programme, Mozambique
Tropical Important Plant Areas in Cameroon
Tropical Important Plant Areas in Guinea-Conakry
Colombia Bio
Colombia tropical dry forest
ColPlantA
Conserving seed from the rare and endangered flora of the USA
Enhancing conservation and access to medicinal plants in Peru
Mexican Newton Project
Mexico Sonora
Saving the threatened forests of Hispanioala in the Dominican Republic
Science-based conservation of tree species in Mexico
Bunchy top virus mitigation: screening wild bananas for resistance
Banking the flora of Kyrgyzstan
Conserving Threatened Biodiversity Hotspots of Thailand and Indonesia
Global Tree Seed Bank of Bhutan, Indonesia and Thailand
Medicinal and aromatic plants of Pakistan
Unlocking the potential of Seasonal Forests to underpin Wallacea’s green economy
Australian Seed Bank Partnership
Enhancing rural Caucasian livelihoods through fruit and nut conservation
Global Tree Seed Bank of the Caucasus
Threatened Biodiversity Hotspots in the Caucasus
Alpine seed conservation and research network
Conserving the endemic flora of the Carpathian region
ENSCONET Consortium
Banking the UK’s Seed
Living Ash project
UK Ash Collecting project
UK Native Seed Hub
UK Threatened Flora
UK National Tree Seed project
Identifying and conserving resilient habitats in the British Virgin Islands
Tropical Important Plant Areas in the British Virgin Islands
Di Sacco, A., Hardwick, K.A., Blakesley, D., Brancalion, P.H.S., Breman, E., Cecilio Rebola, L., Chomba, S., Dixon, K., Elliott, S., Ruyonga, G., Shaw, K., Smith, P., Smith, R.J., Antonelli, A. (2021)
Global Change Biology 27: 1328–1348.
Pearce, T.R., Antonelli, A., Brearley, F.Q., Couch, C., Campostrini Forzza, R., Gonçalves, S.C., Magassouba, S., Morim, M.P., Mueller, G.M., Nic Lughadha, E., Obreza, M., Sharrock, S., Simmonds, M.S.J., Bonglim Tambam, B., Utteridge, T.M.A. & Breman, E. (2020)
Plants People Planet 2: 515–534.
Kildisheva, O.A., Dixon, K.W., Silveira, A.O., Chapman, T., Di Sacco, A., Mondoni, A., Turner, S.R. & Cross, A.T. (2020)
Restoration Ecology 28: 256–265
Liu, U., Cossu, T.A., Davies, R.M., Forest, F., Dickie, J.B. & Breman, E. (2020)
Biodiversity and Conservation 29: 2901–2949
Breman, E., Détraz-Méroz, J., Terry, J. & Lambelet, C. (2019)
Biologia 74: 1621–1625
Chapman, T., Miles, S. & Trivedi, T. (2019)
Plant Diversity 41: 124–131.
Gargiulo, R., Saubin, M., Rizzuto, G., West, B., Fay, M.F., Kallow, S. & Trivedi, C. (2019)
Biological Conservation 223: 289–297.
Liu, U., Kenny, S., Breman, E., Cossu, T.A. (2019)
Biodiversity and Conservation 234: 221–240.
Mattana, E., Peguero, P., Di Sacco, A., Agramonte, W., Castillo, W.R.E., Jiménez, F., Clase, T., Pritchard, H.W., Gómez-Barreiro, P., Castillo-Lorenzo, E., Encarnación, M.T., Way, M.J., García, R. & Ulian, T. (2019)
New Forests 51: 705–721.
Skelton, A., Buxton-Kirk, A., Fowkes, A., Harju, V., Forde, S., Ward, R., Frew, L., Wagstaff, O., Pearce, T.R., Terry, J., Dickie, J., Cockel, C., Nyamongo, D.O., Aboagye, L.M., Wasswa, J.M. & Fox, A. (2019)
New Disease Reports 39: 23.
Ulian, T., Pritchard, H.W., Cockel, C.P., & Mattana, E. (2019)
Encyclopedia of Food Security and Sustainability 3: 32–38.
Hoban, S., Kallow, S. & Trivedi, C. (2018)
Biological Conservation 225: 10–21.
Liu, U., Breman, E., Cossu, T.A. & Kenney, S. (2018)
Biodiversity and Conservation 27: 1347–1386.
Seeds are available for distribution to bona fide users, view the MSB Seed List. There are also a number of different MSBP resources for use by our partners and other parties including:
See our MSB Partnership Data Warehouse Resources page to view what is available.
The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership newsletter, Samara, is published twice annually. It contains interesting stories and experiences from our partners across the globe. Read the latest issues of Issues of Samara.
Seed Collection
Over 12 million seeds from 371 species in 25 countries have been collected to help adapt agriculture to climate change.
Crop Wild RelativesNew partners in the Global Tree Seed Bank Project, the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa begin a programme of tree seed collection and research.
MSBP partnership in JapanKew scientists delve deep into the seed vault of Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank to uncover the conservation value of the seeds stored at -20°C.
Our sleeping beautiesBobbi Hope explains how training is increasing the capacity of the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership to conserve the world’s plant species.
Seed conservation trainingAfter a Seed Conservation Techniques Training Course by Kew Scientists, the first native seed bank of Colombia was opened in a historic building at the Humboldt Institute, Villa de Leyva.
Colombia seed bank