Botanists at Britain’s Kew Gardens have collected seeds from 10 percent of the world’s wild plants, their first goal in a long-term project to protect all endangered species, they said Thursday. … With it the project reaches its target to collect, bank and conserve seeds from 10 percent of the world’s most under-threat wild plant species — although it is already working towards a new goal of 25 percent of plants by 2020. “The success we are celebrating today is extraordinary and on a scale never before contemplated in global biodiversity conservation,” said Professor Stephen Hopper, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in west London. “In a time of increasing concern about loss of biodiversity and climate change, Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank partnership provides a real message of hope and is a vital resource in an uncertain world. “The need for the kind of insurance policy and practical conservation resource Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank provides has never been greater.” About 60,000-100,000 species of plant are threatened with extinction — a quarter of the total — largely because of human behaviour, whether through the clearing or over-exploitation of land or climate change, Kew officials say.
UK botanists bank 10% of world’s plant species via Endangered Species
