Case Study: Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh
The Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh (RBGE) has established a strong relationship with China spanning decades. Acclaimed Scottish explorer George Forrest pioneered the botanisation of south-west China over a century ago. The Garden is home to the world's largest collection of Chinese plants outside China itself, set within the beautiful landscape of the unique Chinese Hillside. The herbarium also contains thousands of dried Chinese plant specimens, whilst the library contains a wealth of Chinese botanical archives.
The 'Jade Dragon Snow Mountain' Field Station and Lijiang Botanic Garden (the "Lijiang Project") is a conservation project run between the RBGE, the Kunming Institute of Botany and the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Science. It is part funded by Scottish Ministers along with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and commercial sponsors and is recognised as the first UK-China joint scientific laboratory.
The 21st century offers great environmental challenges - challenges such as the avoidance of habitat destruction, the description of new species and raising public awareness of these and similar issues. As well as plants being the source of life itself, the conservation of the natural environment also has dramatic effects on issues such as tourism, commerce, industry and people's quality of life. The worldwide boom in herbal medicine is threatening to wipe out up to a fifth of the plant species on which it depends, wrecking natural habitats and jeopardising the health of millions of people in developing countries.
The Lijiang Project is a major step forward in meeting these challenges and is an enormous advancement towards the work of modern botanic gardens. There are an estimated 3,000 plant species which grow on the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain - this compares to a mere 800 flowering plant species in all of Scotland. Field stations allow the opportunity to study and record the constantly changing and evolving natural world. This provides the basis for action plans to be put in place to conserve species and habitats.
The Lijiang Project achieves several objectives: it helps China to achieve its action plan on biodiversity and it pulls together scientists, diplomats, politicians and business-people to work on a single goal - sustainable land management for world conservation. The Project is a vehicle for education and training. It is heavily focussed on engaging the local community and particularly works on social inclusion, involving the poor (peasant farmers and their families). It creates a significant number of local jobs in horticulture, conservation, education, eco-tourism and construction.
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