News published: 21 August 2022

Held in the island of outstanding beauty, Eleuthera, The Bahamas, and hosted by the gorgeous Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve, the 2022 Botanical Bridges Congress of the Caribbean and Central America Botanic Gardens (CCABG) Network, brought together nearly 50 participants from 26 institutions, representing 11 countries and territories. The key outcomes and emerging themes at the Congress included: 

• Revision and endorsement of a draft Plant Conservation Strategy for the Caribbean Region. The strategy provides a unifying set of plant conservation actions linked to and in support of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. The Strategy will be circulated among the Network in early 2023 for a final stakeholder consultation.
• A range of tools, databases and other resources that are available through BGCI to support and guide plant conservation, including GardenSearch, PlantSearch, ThreatSearch, GlobalTreeSearch, International Plant Sentinel Network, Global Conservation Consortia, Global Tree Assessment, and the Global Tree Portal.
• There is a significant need to draw in more participation from Caribbean and Central American botanic gardens and other organisations involved in plant conservation to consolidate the CCABG Network. This will require scaling up of communication, engagement, and promotion of the network.

Botanic Gardens across the region are acting as education, training, and sustainability centres to build regional capacity in support of plant conservation. Projects that focus on taxonomic groups can serve as successful models for collaboration, such as the creation of coordinated meta-collections of high conservation value. Building new partnerships within and beyond the region are necessary to grow capacity for plant conservation. This includes collaborations between botanic gardens and governments, businesses and entrepreneurships, schools and universities, and local communities. Conservation horticulture plays a vital role in supporting all plant conservation efforts. Given the major risks posed by climate change in the region, further efforts are needed in disaster management planning to prepare, mitigate and restore collections and institutions impacted by severe weather and geophysical events. 

The 2024 Botanical Bridges Congress will be held in Cartagena, Colombia, hosted by the Jardín Botánico de Cartagena “Guillermo Piñeres”.