The winners of the Seed Conservation Awards were announced in August at an awards ceremony held at the 8th Global Botanic Garden Congress in Singapore! This year, the Seed Award nominations were reviewed by Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank and the IUCN Seed Conservation Specialist Group.
Watch the Seed Conservation Awards Winners Video: https://vimeo.com/991648621
The Global Seed Conservation Challenge (GSCC) aims to increase the contribution of botanic gardens in seed conservation by supporting and challenging them to collect, bank and conserve seeds of threatened species. As part of the GSCC, the Seed Conservation Awards are held to acknowledge contributions to seed conservation across the globe. The awards are open to anyone who officially banks wild plant species and there are several different categories — from “Conserved the most threatened species” to “Developed the most unusual cleaning or germination process.” Further details about the Seed Conservation Awards and categories can be found here. All applicants were encouraged to upload their seed collections to BGCI’s PlantSearch — a tool for accessing and sharing information about living collections — as one of the categories was decided based on the information held in this database. BGCI welcomes anyone who officially maintains plant collections to upload living/viable plants, seeds, pollen, and tissue data into PlantSearch.
The Seed Conservation Specialist Group provides a network for knowledge-sharing in different ecosystems around the world and are continually growing. Further details about the group and how to join can be found at https://seedconservationsg.org/
There are some interesting stories on the grants page about seed collecting projects that BGCI has funded through the Global Botanic Garden Fund (GBGF) that may be of interest. For example this one about seed germination studies on endangered Diospyros species in Sri Lanka.
There is a call for applications to the GGI-Gardens Partnership Awards Program, which is administered through the GBGF. This award supports activities to preserve genomic biodiversity of plants through sampling of living collections maintained at botanic gardens. Past recipients have used their awards to expand their collections through wild germplasm collections and building capacity at their institutions by improving their supplies, facilities, and training. Applications are due by November 15, 2024.
