News Published: 21 October 2024

A symposium entitled “Collaborating to Conserve North America’s Crop Wild Relatives and Wild Utilized Plants” was convened September 17-19, 2024 by BGCI-US and the United States Botanic Garden at the Denver Botanic Gardens, to review progress and envision future priorities to conserve North America’s crop wild relatives and wild utilized plants. Symposium participants represented botanic gardens, genebanks, Indigenous communities, managed lands, and research and breeding sites. Over 90 people from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico attended in person and 150 additional practitioners participated virtually in the symposium.

The symposium was preceded on September 16, 2024 by a Wildland Gathering led by the Flower Hill Institute, in collaboration with BGCI-US, Denver Botanic Gardens, San Diego Botanic Garden, and the United States Botanic Garden. The Wildland Gathering brought together over 20 Indigenous representatives from across North America and several other interested people for facilitated discussions that focused on North American Indigenous foragers and gatherers of wildland plants.

The three-day symposium that followed included over 30 speakers who addressed topics relevant to the Road Map for Conservation, Use, and Public Engagement around North America’s Crop Wild Relatives and Wild Utilized Plants (Khoury et al., 2019 doi:10.2135/cropsci2019.05.0309). Gary Nabhan, author and ethnobotanist, shared a key-note address, Reverse Engineering Western Agriculture with Crop Wild Relatives Breeding and Direct Use. Talks and panels were structured around the five CWR Road Map priorities: understanding and documenting; protecting in natural habitats; conserving ex situ; making accessible to researchers, breeders, and educators; and raising public awareness.

To view a list of speakers and topics covered, please visit: www.usbg.gov/program-2024-crop-wild-relative-symposium

Symposium participants also took part in two field trips to the Denver Botanic Gardens’ Chatfield Farms and the USDA-ARS National Laboratory for Genetic Resource Preservation (NLGRP) in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Following the symposium, a Herbaceous Perennial Grains Working Group meeting was led by Allison Miller from the Danforth Plant Science Center and Saint Louis University. Over 40 participants took part in discussions aimed at establishing a botanical foundation that supports the diversification of agriculture through perennial grains.

Special thanks to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Denver Botanic Gardens, Flower Hill Institute, Missouri Botanical Garden, NatureServe, San Diego Botanic Garden, the United States Botanic Garden, United States Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service, and the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden for making this event possible.

A report based on the discussions and outcomes of the symposium will be shared widely in the coming months.