The Global Trees Campaign and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank Partnership (MSBP) are working together to step up conservation for some of the world’s most threatened tree species.

The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew has recently secured funding for a four year project with the aim to establish the MSBP as the global repository for tree seeds - the “Global Tree Seed Bank”. The MSBP has already collected seed from 3,900 trees, and as a result of this new project aims to increase its tree collections by 50% in four years (by March 2018).

The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew requested the support of the Global Trees Campaign and its international network of partners to contribute towards achieving this ambitious aim. This new partnership aims to secure ex situ collections of seed from 500 priority tree species from around the world with a focus on threatened trees. The partnership also aims to increase capacity for seed collection of threatened trees and raise awareness of the value of establishing seed collections for the world’s threatened trees.

Seed conservation is of vital importance for threatened tree species, allowing wide genetic diversity to be preserved without demanding the large amounts of space and curatorial care required for living tree collections. As well as protection from extinction, seed collections can be used in reintroduction and restoration programmes to improve the conservation status of threatened trees in the wild.

In addition to securing the ex situ conservation of some of the world’s most threatened species, the project aims to provide high level training to increase capacity for tree conservation in a number of priority countries, including Kenya, Belize and Vietnam. Activities to be carried out include training in seed collection and conservation techniques, field surveys for threatened tree species and the use of threatened tree seed in tree re-introduction and restoration projects.

Seed collected will be stored in-country and duplicated in the MSBP’s state-of-the-art seed banking facilities at Wakehurst Place in West Sussex, UK, for maximum conservation impact.

The project is now underway with feasibility studies reviewing the options for seed collection within a number of target countries. These studies will form the basis for a larger programme of work including training workshops, field surveys and seed collections to be carried out for the duration of the project (until March 2018), and contributing to the establishment of the Global Tree Seed Bank.