1. A note from CBCN Executive Director
2. Message from Ahmed Djoghlaf
3. Plant conservation in a changing world
4. Preparing to Launch the North American Botanic Gardens Conservation Strategy
5. Biodiversity, climate change, and cultural diversity
6. The urgent need for biodiversity information
7. Adapting to a Changing World
8. The Canadian University Biodiversity Consortium and a new biodiversity center at the Montréal Botanical Garden
9. Stopping the Green Invasion! Memorial University of Newfoundland Botanical Garden Takes Aim at Invasive Alien Species
10. What's Coming Up at CITES CoP 14
11. Letter from Wuhan: A report on the Third Global Botanic Gardens Congress
12. The Montréal Botanical Garden Formally Reinforces its Commitment to Biodiversity Conservation, and hosts a Wollemi Pine
13. Meeting of the Canadian Pollination Protection Initiative
14. Summer is around the corner. Make it count!
15. First Sustainability Camp: a Success
16. Earth Day Celebration at UBC Botanical Garden

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11. Letter from Wuhan: A report on the Third Global Botanic Gardens Congress, David Galbraith, Royal Botanical Gardens

Some of the large collections of wetland plants at Wuhan Botanical Garden Photo: David Galbraith

Botanic Gardens Conservation International, Wuhan Botanical Garden and the Chinese Academy of Sciences organized a very exciting and productive global congress for botanical gardens involved in conservation in April, 2007.

Botanic Gardens Conservation International organizes a major botanic gardens congress on conservation every three or so years. Eight such meetings were held in various parts of the world prior to 2000. In 2000, the congress was combined with the annual meeting of the America Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta, and was termed the First Global Botanic Gardens Congress. The 2000 meeting was held in Asheville, North Carolina, and has often been referred to since simply as "Asheville." The second global congress was held in 2004 in Barcelona, Spain. The Third Global Congress was held from 16-20 April 2007 at Wuhan, Hubei Province, China.

These congresses are major meetings. Approximately 1,000 people attended the Wuhan congress, representing over 350 gardens from 89 countries, according to the conference organizers. The congress was a major milestone in the development of the mission of our sector. Three dominant themes are emerging as the raison d’être of botanical gardens: to conserve plant diversity in the face of the present extinction crisis, to promote the sustainable, positive benefits of using plant diversity sustainably, especially to support human well-being, and to use the capacities of our intuitions to make positive contributions to combat climate change and mitigate it’s effects.

The underlying theme of the organizers in planning this congress was to assess the contributions of botanical gardens around the world to achieving the targets of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, or GSPC. Several symposia and plenary sessions directly addressed the contributions botanical gardens are making to the GSPC, including through education, ex situ and in situ conservation, and research undertakings such as the development of the first working version of a global flora, which is the first target of the GSPC.

The next global congress is scheduled for 2010. The location has yet to be decided, but the organizers announced that they have received a bid from the National Botanic Gardens of Ireland to host the fourth congress. BGCI is expected to finalize the location later in 2007.