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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCTOBER 15, 2009
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Vickie Karp/Jesslyn Moser (Parks): 212-360-1311
Kate Blumm (BBG): 718-623-7241
Major Milestone For Global Plant Conservation
NYC Parks & Recreation and Brooklyn Botanic Garden Help Bank Seed of Ten Percent Of World's Wild Plant Species
Brooklyn, New York—OCTOBER 15, 2009—The New York City Department of Parks & Recreation and Brooklyn Botanic Garden today announced that they have contributed to the seed banking of ten percent of the world's wild plant species through participation in the worldwide Millennium Seed Bank project (MSB), based at the United Kingdom's Royal Botanic Garden, Kew (RBG). MSB officials announced the ten percent achievement—a major milestone for global biodiversity conservation efforts—early this morning at an event at Kew's Millennium Seed Bank facility in Wakehurst Place, England.
"Through our historic partnership with Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, we have identified and collected the seeds of 75 important and declining local plant species from the greater New York City area for safe storage and as a hedge against their possible loss from nature," said New York City Parks commissioner Adrian Benepe. "Today we are happy to announce the completion of our seed collection from the New York City region to contribute to MSB's achievement of collecting ten percent of wild plants worldwide."
Brooklyn Botanic Garden president Scot Medbury said, "Brooklyn Botanic Garden is proud to contribute its expertise in the native flora of the New York City metropolitan area, in partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation and Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, to this extraordinary effort. The progress made by the Millennium Seed Bank and its worldwide partners speaks to the great global movement to ensure the future of biodiversity in our rapidly urbanizing world. BBG will continue to comprehensively study the vegetation of New York City and its environs, deepening the understanding of the city's plant life and by extension providing a blueprint for conservation efforts."
In 2006, the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation—through its Greenbelt Native Plant Center (GNPC) on Staten Island—and Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) were invited by RBG to join as local partners in its global effort to bank the seeds of the world's flora. The GNPC/BBG effort is distinguished by being the only urban partner of the worldwide Millennium Seed Bank partnership.
GNPC and BBG agreed to make conservation-quality seed collections of 75 locally important and declining species from the greater NYC area. These species have been collected from wild populations within the five boroughs and from neighboring counties, utilizing internationally accepted standards for capturing maximum genetic diversity. This fall, field experts from GNPC, with BBG's assistance, are collecting the last five of these species to send to the Millennium Seed Bank facility in England.
BBG scientists and GNPC staff selected local species from regionally rare plant associations and from plant communities whose ranges are contracting, largely due to urban and suburban development and the encroachment of nonnative invasive species. Selected plant communities include Oak–Tulip Tree Forest, Red Cedar Rocky Summit, Maritime Heathland, and Dwarf Pine Plains. Populations of the selected species were then located by using current and historical plant location data from BBG's New York Metropolitan Flora Project and by field scouting.
According to Dr. Paul Smith, head of Kew's MSB partnership, "The Millennium Seed Bank is not a doomsday vault where seeds are stored under lock and key—our mission is to use these seeds to support conservation and improve people's lives. Most of the collections are available for research, and over a third have a known use to people. This is very much what the next phase of the Millennium Seed Bank partnership is all about."
MSB seeds will be made available to organizations involved in researching and delivering the sustainable functions of plants (for example, drought-resistant crop and forage species, medicinal species, and energy-rich species) and in the restoration of damaged vegetation.
GNPC's and BBG's involvement in the Millennium Seed Bank has yielded several benefits that will also have a lasting positive impact on local and regional efforts to conserve native flora. The seed-banking facilities at the GNPC were renovated with funds provided by RBG/MSBP to meet international standards, allowing Parks to expand and enhance its ongoing efforts of the past decade to preserve local biodiversity by seed banking and propagating rare and declining plants in New York City. In addition to the MSB collections, the GNPC seed bank now contains more than 1,400 accessions from over 400 plant species from the five boroughs and the region. In addition, the new seed-storage facility has enabled GNPC to assist other regional efforts to collect and bank local seed. The GNPC is now in the process of formulating plans to organize itself as the Mid-Atlantic Regional Seed Bank—a seed repository for restoration and management projects throughout the region.
The ten percent target was set in 2000 when the Millennium Seed Bank partnership was formed, and though this accomplishment is being celebrated today, a new target looms—collecting and banking a quarter of the world's plants by 2020. For more information about the Millennium Seed Bank and today's announcement, visit www.kew.org/press.
About BBG's New York Metropolitan Flora Project
Launched in 1990, the New York Metropolitan Flora project (NYMF) is a multiyear effort to document the flora in all counties within a 50-mile radius of New York City, including all of Long Island, southeastern New York State, northern New Jersey, and Fairfield County, Connecticut. NYMF serves as a vital reference for those involved in environmental efforts such as preserving rare plants, planning parks and greenways, repairing degraded habitats, and designing home gardens in which native plant communities are preserved or restored. Past and present major funding for NYMF is provided by the Andrew Mellon Foundation, Eppley Foundation, Hudson River Watershed Foundation, and New York Biodiversity Research Institute.
About NYC Parks' Greenbelt Native Plant Center
The Greenbelt Native Plant Center (GNPC) is a 13-acre greenhouse, nursery, and seed-bank facility located on Staten Island. Its mission is to provide native plants and seed from local plant populations in support of the restoration and management of many of New York City's most vulnerable natural areas.