News published: 28 February 2024

As reported in our 2022 Year in Review, BGCI wound up its Ukraine Botanic Garden Appeal in early 2023, dispersing almost $100,000 to ten different botanical gardens around Ukraine.  The funds were used to maintain staffing and collections, and to offer education programs and tours to thousands of refugees and other citizens during the first year of the full-scale Russian invasion.  Over fifty botanical gardens worldwide generously donated in a campaign led by BGCI and initiated by Partnerships for Nature (PN), a US non-profit organization specializing in international environmental education exchanges, and a close partner of Ukraine’s botanical gardens.  

After the Ukraine Appeal funds had been distributed, some additional donations were received by BGCI.  When BGCI and PN notified the Council of Ukrainian Botanical Gardens and Arboretums of this remaining amount of over 7,000 British pounds, the Council asked that it be utilized to support an upcoming workshop in Poland on environmental education for Ukrainian garden staff.  The rest of the costs for the workshop were covered by PN and by San Diego Botanic Garden, a new partner in PN’s exchange programs. 

The workshop, organized and led by PN, was held from October 9 to October 12, 2023, at Bolestrazyce Arboretum in Southeast Poland.  Just pulling it off was a remarkable triumph over the logistical complexities and contingencies of the ongoing war.  Twenty  participants arrived from eight botanical gardens  located all over Ukraine – from Krivyi Rih and Zaporizhzhia near the front lines in the east, to Lviv and Chernivtsi in the far west.  Two came from the Grishko National Botanical Garden in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city, which has been subject to frequent bombing and drone attacks throughout the war.  The participants rode trains and buses, crossed the tightly guarded border to Poland in small groups, and were then shuttled by car to the Arboretum, seven kilometers northeast of the city of Przemysl. Andriy Prokopiv, Director of the Lviv University Botanical Garden and chief organizer from the Ukraine side, brought his personal car across the border to help with the transfers.  The group  stayed in the Arboretum’s historic onsite accommodations, sharing rooms and meals. 

It was the first time they had seen each other in person since the pandemic broke out in 2020, although PN’s Round Tables on environmental education had brought them together online on a regular basis.  The war kept them confined to their own cities and gardens, forced to seek shelter when air raid sirens sounded, fearing the worst and sometimes witnessing violence and destruction. Now they wandered through the lush, botanically diverse grounds of the Arboretum, exploring on their own and taking part in special tours led by Arboretum staff. 

The chief focus of the workshop was interpretive techniques and signage, although sessions were also held on event planning, nature restoration, and other topics.  Polish staff took part alongside their Ukrainian and US colleagues; language barriers were surmounted by skilled local translators operating in three or four languages at once!  All participants led or co-led sessions, including Tomoko Kuta, the manager of education programs at San Diego Botanic Garden.  Meals and evenings provided time for the diverse group to relax and get acquainted, or re-acquainted, laying the groundwork for more networking and collaboration in the future.  

Evaluations of the workshop were overwhelmingly positive.  “I can’t say that some classes were more useful than others. Because they all gave us the opportunity to learn something new. This is an invaluable experience,” wrote Ksenia Korzhan, an educator at Chernivsti Botanical Garden.   Olha Zubrovska of Krivyi Rih Botanical Garden commented that “the workshop was professionally organized, everything was thought out in detail. For me it was a new format of communication with like-minded people and colleagues, which turned out to be more productive than ordinary conferences.”  A Polish participant, Ewa Antoniewska, noted that “…the meeting was  very  interesting. I was lucky to take part in it also because of the idea of helping people to have a little rest from the war.” 

The Ukrainians repeatedly mentioned how restorative it was to be away from the daily stress and sadness of the war for the first time since it began eighteen months earlier.  When it was time to go home, some tears were shed all around – in sadness at parting, and in gratitude for the days spent together exchanging professional knowledge and learning new things in a peaceful, stimulating setting.  All participants, along with BGCI, deeply thank the Arboretum’s Director, Narcyz Piorecki, and his amazing staff, for providing this unique opportunity.  PN and its Ukraine partners are now planning activities for 2024, a mix of online and in-person events building on the workshop in Poland – a fine capstone to BGCI’s Ukraine Botanic Garden Appeal.