Open to the whole botanic garden community, BGCI launched an online forum with the aim to support botanic gardens, arboreta, and other botanical institutions through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Initially – the forum will focus on the impacts of Covid-19 and will act as a safe space for members of the botanic garden community to discuss the following:

• How the Covid-19 pandemic is impacting their gardens and plant conservation efforts
• How their institution is responding to these impacts
• How to mitigate impacts
• How to support each other through the crisis
• How to collaborate during the crisis
• How to manage a living collection during the crisis

Members of the community can freely comment, share experiences, and upload photos on other media. At first it will be moderated by BGCI, but after some time we will open up the forum to be moderated by trusted members of our community. The platform was first tested by members of the International Advisory Council, who will continue to provide significant support and engage in the discussion forum.

While initially focused on COVID-19, BGCI will open up topics to include plant conservation, education, sustainability, BGCI’s Accreditation Scheme, and more.

Instructions

1. To access the forum visit forum.bgci.org
2. Click log in
3. Access to BGCI’s Online Forum is granted by SheepCRM, so if you already have an account with BGCI’s SheepCRM you may use the same email address and password
4. If you don’t have an account, click Create / Manage my account
5. Follow the instructions provided. Please complete as much of the information as you can! Make sure to use your email address associated with your botanic garden, arboreta, or other botanical institution
6. You will need to activate your account by checking your email
7. Once the account is created, you can return to forum.bgci.org to log in

BGCI’s Online Forum Etiquette

BGCI trusts that our online community will be respectful and supportive of eachother during these difficult times. Should BGCI feel that a user is disruptive, abusive, or harfmul, BGCI retains the right to ban the user from participating in the forum.

Further guidelines will be developed to support the online forum.