[Science News] - An important step: three quarters of endangered native plants are preserved in Meise Botanic Garden's seed bank

Meise Botanic Garden has recently reached a significant milestone in the conservation of Belgium's native flora. No fewer than 75% of the threatened native plant species have had their seeds collected thanks to a fruitful collaboration with Natuurpunt. These seeds are preserved long-term in the Botanic Garden's seed bank at a temperature of -20°C.

This achievement is part of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC). The objectives of this strategy were adopted at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2002. Each country that signed the treaty committed to developing national strategies and implementing action plans aimed at preserving, protecting, and enhancing biodiversity.

Today, Meise Botanic Garden has reached a major milestone for Belgium in relation to Target 8 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation: “At least 75% of threatened plant species are conserved in ex situ collections (i.e., outside their natural habitat), preferably in their country of origin, and at least 20% of these species are available for recovery and restoration programs.” This mission is shared by the 2,000 botanic gardens worldwide.

Sandrine Godefroid, botanist at Meise Botanic Garden seed bank: "Since the late 1980s, Meise Botanic Garden has been one of the first botanic gardens in Europe to establish a seed bank for the conservation of threatened national flora. Thanks to climate-controlled storage, the seeds of most of our plant species remain viable for over a century. After three decades of collection, we had conserved 44% of Belgium's threatened flora in the seed bank. The recent successful collaboration with Natuurpunt has significantly increased seed collection by the end of 2024, covering 75% of the species listed on Flanders' Red List. This is an exceptional result that, to our knowledge, has not been achieved by any other national seed bank within the European Union."

In May 2024, the Botanic Garden reached another important milestone with the inauguration of a next-generation seed bank. Combined with the new greenhouse complex "The Green Ark," this infrastructure supports essential conservation goals as well as the objectives of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation. Since nature conservation falls under regional authority, we will now continue seed collection in the south of the country to achieve a similar result for the flora listed on Wallonia's Red List.

This remarkable achievement illustrates Meise Botanic Garden's commitment to biodiversity conservation and marks an important step towards the sustainable preservation of Belgium's threatened flora.