Strengthening collaborations between Regional Networks

In November 2021 BGCI organised and hosted an inter-regional virtual meeting bringing together 40 participants representing more than 20 organisations from 13 countries. Gardens from the Southeast Asia Botanic Gardens Network (SEABG) met with the South American Botanic Gardens Network (RSAJB) and the Mexican Botanic Gardens Association (AMJB), to share experiences and best practices in consolidating regional and national botanic garden networks.

The national botanic gardens networks in most Southeast Asian countries are still at developmental stage. Different countries are at different phases of establishing a national network based on its policies, cultural settings, etc. Each country requires specific approaches, that should be established on a case-by-case basis to bring together the stakeholders for formation of national botanic gardens Networks.

The hope is that by learning from other well-established networks, BGCI will further facilitate regular and continuing inter-regional and national collaboration to address collective interest on plant conservation between botanic garden networks. Many of the issues and barriers that botanic gardens face in Latin America are also shared in Southeast Asia.

Why was this meeting important:

• to strengthen ties with other regional networks, in this case between the RSAJB and the SEABG;
• to keep SEABG Network members updated on BGCI’s conservation initiatives and other activities happening at both global and regional level;
• to create a platform to share experiences, knowledge and ideas;
• to further facilitate regular and continuing inter-regional and national collaboration between botanic garden networks.

You can view the recording of the Mexican Association Botanic Gardens (AMJB) presentation for the SEABG Conference November 2021

BGCI will continue to promote regional integration between the different botanic garden networks, facilitating the sharing of experiences, learning from each other and building capacity.