Global Plan Gathers Seeds Of A Diverse Future

The Age

Friday September 7, 2007

Chee Chee Leung, Science reporter

IT'S THE world's "insurance policy" against plant extinctions - green thumbs from across the globe banking tens of thousands of seeds for the future.

Called the Millennium Seed Bank, the project was started by Britain's Royal Botanic Garden in Kew, and 18,000 plant species have already been catalogued and stored.

The Victorian arm of the international effort - the Victorian Conservation Seedbank - started two years ago, and scientists have so far collected 4.5 million seeds for the cause, representing 280 species.

After the seeds are dried and cleaned, they are stored in freezers set at minus 20 degrees. The idea is that if a plant dies out, the banked specimens can be used to reintroduce it to the wild.

Half of all the collected samples will be deposited with the UK bank, with the rest to be stored at Victoria's National Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne.

The gardens' chief botanist, Professor David Cantrill, said that creating a seed bank would help protect rare and threatened species from such threats as climate change and urban expansion.

"As responsible citizens of the world, we really need to act, and look at what we can do to conserve this diversity for future generations," he said.

More than 3000 native species of plants can be found in Victoria, but about 700 are considered to be under threat of extinction.

Collection of Victorian seeds started in October 2005. Items banked so far include seeds from a daisy bush that grows on a single limestone marble outcrop in East Gippsland, and seeds from a eucalypt known from just one plant in the Wimmera.

The collection work has also led to the rediscovery of Pimelea spinescens, a plant thought to be extinct since 1901.

The Victorian seed bank project is run by the botanic gardens, with help from the Department of Sustainability and Environment.

The Millennium Seed Bank involves the work of 50 countries, with the aim of collecting seeds for 30,000 species by 2010.

Botanic gardens staff will conduct a walk to highlight the work of the seed bank today, to coincide with Threatened Species Day.

LINKS

? rbg.vic.gov.au

? kew.org/msbp

© 2007 The Age

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