Happy New Year to all, and here’s hoping that all of our dreams come true in 2023!

One of the ways we can make a start with this is by improving the ways in which we duplicate and exchange plant material in our professional community. Exchange of material for research and conservation duplication is essential, and too little of this is happening currently. We have both anecdotal and documented evidence that it is becoming more difficult to exchange plant material at a time when the global challenges (and opportunities) of biodiversity loss, climate change and sustainable development are more acute than ever before.

The number one reason given for not exchanging material is the bureaucracy involved – largely to do with compliance with regulations related to biosecurity and access and benefit sharing (ABS) under the Nagoya Protocol. This bureaucracy comes with expensive costs related to staff time and fees. The irony is that many of these regulatory frameworks do not differentiate between the work of our scientific research and conservation community and that of large scale commercial organisations who trade in plants. Worse still, these blunt policy instruments are actually impeding the vital conservation, research and education work that we do[1].

So what can we do about this?

Our theory of change is that if we can demonstrate to policymakers that we are (a) not only compliant but employ best practice when it comes to exchanging plant material, and (b) that exchanging plant material has major impacts when it comes to supporting research, education and conservation. Then, we should be able to negotiate streamlined regulatory processes or exemptions that enable the smooth and cost-effective exchange of plant material.

To this end, BGCI has been working with partners in the European Consortium of Botanic Gardens and the African Botanic Garden Network over the past five years to develop two material/data exchange tools that are fully compliant with national and international regulations. These are Index Seminum and PlantConnect, both of which can now be accessed via BGCI’s website. Both are open to all bona fide botanical institutions, including botanic gardens, universities, forestry research institutes, arboreta and so on. These platforms are not available to individuals or the private sector. The Index Seminum tool has been developed together with the Index Seminum user community, and is primarily designed for the uploading and sharing of annual seed catalogues. PlantConnect enables more ad hoc material exchange, and is not confined to seeds. Both tools require levels of provenance data that will ensure that suppliers and recipients of material know exactly what is being exchanged and the regulations that apply to that specific material. Both tools are supported by peer-reviewed certification in ABS, biosecurity and CITES compliance, should institutions need this.

What is needed now is for you – the professional botanical community – to adopt these tools. They aren’t perfect but they are pretty good, and using them will create some inconvenience in the short term as you learn how to use them. However, in the medium to long term it will be worth it. Let’s start exchanging and duplicating plants!

[1] Kiehn, M., Fischer, F. & Smith, P. (2021). The Nagoya Protocol and Access and Benefit Sharing regulations of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its impacts on botanic gardens’ collections and research.  CAB Reviews 2021 16, No. 034