A meeting was held at the National Botanic Garden Wales in October on the PlantNetwork Target 8 project, which is looking how horticulture can support of conservation of the flora of Britain and Ireland by linking in situ (i.e. in its natural habitat), and ex situ (i.e. removed from it natural habitat and conserved elsewhere) conservation. The plan is to use member gardens to grow the threatened plants of Britain and Ireland ex situ and to link them to conservation work in situ.

Two short presentations were given to explain the background to the project and then a general discussion took place on ways to promote and develop the project. The intention is that all botanic gardens in Britain and Ireland should adopt a couple of endangered native species, so that an understanding could be built up of what it takes to germinate their seed, grow them on and get them to seed again, in order to ensure their long-term survival. Representatives from a number of Welsh botanic gardens, conservation agencies and other organisations attended.

This project is part of the UK's first response to the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation. This report, Plant Diversity Challenge, has been compiled on behalf of the Government by a partnership between the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Plantlife International and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Target 8 of the strategy is to have 60% of threatened plant species in accessible ex situ collections, preferably in the country of origin, and 10% of them included in recovery and restoration programmes.

For more information on the meeting go to: www.plantnetwork.org/forums/nbgwalest8/summary.htm