China has made notable progress in plant conservation, botanic garden development, scientific capacity-building and international cooperation, offering useful references for the wider botanic garden community.
by Xinhua writers Zhao Jiasong, Yu Aicen LONDON, May 22 (Xinhua) -- China's rich plant diversity and expanding botanic garden network are giving the country an increasingly important role in global biodiversity conservation, the new secretary general of Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) has said.
Carly Cowell, who took up the post earlier this month, made the remarks in a recent interview with Xinhua in London ahead of the International Day for Biological Diversity on Friday.
China has made notable progress in plant conservation, botanic garden development, scientific capacity-building and international cooperation, Cowell said, adding that its experience offers useful references for the wider botanic garden community.
In an era of biodiversity loss, she said, botanic gardens are among the institutions best placed to identify threatened species, understand where they occur, conserve them and help restore their populations.
Home to about 10 percent of the world's higher plant species, China is supporting botanic gardens to conserve, study and better understand its flora, including the roughly 15 percent of native species considered threatened, while also supporting countries facing similar conservation challenges, Cowell said.
"The work that China is doing, and the work that botanic gardens in China are doing, is really significant in this global community for plant conservation," she said.
Recalling her visits to China, Cowell said the country's vast ecological and geographic diversity struck her the most.
That diversity....
