The Botanic Garden

Welcome to the first newsletter for Botanic Gardens in Australia and New Zealand. The newsletter is produced by the Council of Heads of Australian Botanic Gardens, and arose from one of the clear themes, the need for more communication in the BG community.

This newsletter is designed to provide regular updates for the wider Botanic Gardens community across Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific and Asian countries. It is hoped that it will eventually evolve into a fully printed and published journal, containing a mix of articles.

However, we need to start small and grow. This first edition is only available via the World Wide Web. This minimises the time spent on preparation, greatly reduces the cost and allows it to be very easily distributed to those who have web and e-mail access. It is available through the CHABG web-site www.anbg.gov.au/chabg The planned publishing schedule is for a newsletter to be published in March, July and November of each year.

The contents will be very familiar to people. We will have an editor’s article in each edition, some information of people and events in the Botanic Gardens world, and a number of articles submitted by others. The deadline for receiving articles and news items will be one month before publication of each edition – late items will not be accepted. The editors will also be calling on people from many Botanic Gardens to submit articles.

For future newsletters to be effective and interesting we must have news and articles. Please send any items of interest or ideas for articles to Virginia Berger at the CHABG Secretariat bganz-news@anbg.gov.au. Any suggestions to improve the newsletter would also be appreciated.

Editors: Robin Nielsen (Director, ANBG) and Virginia Berger (CHABG secretary). Graphic Design: Barry Brown (ANBG)

About the Council of Heads of Australian Botanic Gardens

CHABG has been operating for the past 10 years and consists of the heads of the major capital city botanic gardens. The participating gardens make an annual contribution for running costs and the secretariat is hosted by the Australian National Botanic Gardens. Meetings are hosted by participating gardens on a rotating basis.

The Council meets twice a year to discuss items of business and plan for the future. In the past 2 years, its deliberations have mostly focussed on the Gardens Congress 2001, which was held in Canberra in April, and the need to broaden the Council’s membership to assist regional gardens and interested individuals to take an active role. In August 2001, the Council met in Darwin. Representatives attending were:

Discussions centred on the question of how to move to establish a more broadly based group. At the recent congress, attendees were very keen to establish such a group and to see more future congresses. In response, CHABG will take a number of active steps.

BGANZ? GA? What’s In A Name?

Representatives of Botanic Gardens and their allies from Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world gathered in Canberra in April this year to talk about the future of botanic gardens. That Congress generated a great deal of goodwill, information and momentum to move botanic gardens into an even more prominent place in the culture of Australia.

One of the main issues discussed at the meeting was how we might move towards a national or international association of Australian Botanic Gardens and their practitioners. Prior to the Congress a working party prepared a discussion paper proposing that we establish an organisation called Gardens Australasia which would bring together Botanic Gardens from Australia, New Zealand and near South East Asia and the Pacific with an overall objective of raising the profile and increasing the effectiveness of botanic gardens in our part of the world. A workshop was held at the Congress to discuss these proposals and there was strong support for moving towards a national organisation, providing that there were real benefits for members, and that costs were reasonable to reflect the diversity of botanic gardens across Australia and New Zealand. Other issues discussed included how the proposed Gardens Australasia would sit with respect to the Council of Heads of Australian Botanic Gardens (CHABG) and organisations like the Australian Network for Plant Conservation (ANPC).

The workshop also stressed that any organisation needed to appeal to reflect the diversity of professionals engaged in the operation of botanic gardens, including horticulture, conservation, education, interpretation, etc. The needs of embryonic specialist groups such as the Curators’ Forum ought to be met by any national organisation. We also identified that Australia lacks a single voice that can speak on behalf of all botanic gardens in an international context, such as ANPC does in the area of plant conservation.

Where to from here with Gardens Australasia was placed into the hands of a working group of interested parties and CHABG. At its meeting in early August, CHABG looked again at where we are going with a national organisation. The meeting took up where the Congress left off and looked hard at some of the unanswered questions and issues raised at the Congress and elsewhere. One of the things noted was that the name Gardens Australasia was chosen to reflect that the membership would probably include more than just practitioners in botanic gardens and would be inclusive of other public gardens which did not see themselves under the narrower definition of "botanic garden". The reality of attendance at the Congress and interest since then has suggested that it’s worth refocussing the name on botanic gardens but inviting any interested party to join. The CHABG meeting also recognised that the reality of the potential catchment for the organisation was Australia and New Zealand, and that it was fairly presumptuous to set ourselves up as able to represent interests outside that group, but noting that any interested botanic garden outside Australia and New Zealand could join if they wish.

We then took on the most daunting task of all and looked for a name that would reflect botanic gardens and Australia and New Zealand and came up with the name Botanic Gardens Australia and New Zealand, or BGANZ.

CHABG, assisted by an ongoing working group, has undertaken to carry the development of BGANZ forward, but also to broaden its own base to make the CHABG meetings more inclusive of other key groups. Setting up an effective easy to maintain form of communication was also one of the outcomes of the CHABG meeting and the first stages are reflected in this newsletter. We strongly believe that fostering communications between botanic gardens and their allies is one of the most useful things a national organisation can achieve.

The working party will continue to develop and refine proposals and reflect these back to interested parties through this newsletter and via e-mail to those who gave their name to me at the Congress. If you would like to know more or be more specifically involved with this process please don’t hesitate to contact me. Otherwise, watch this space!

The Australian Network for Plant Conservation
– A decade of rare plant conservation.

The Australian Network for Plant Conservation was created from the need to coordinate and further plant conservation in Australia. The mission of the ANPC is to promote and develop plant conservation. Ten years on, the network continues to receive international acclaim as a model for plant conservation networking. The overarching and unique feature of the network is its success in integrating all stakeholders from community, industry and government. Networking and partnerships from the global to the local level have resulted in many key outcomes, which will be discussed in this paper. These include: a major national plant conservation training program, featuring a comprehensive 10 day plant conservation techniques course, with plans for a series of master workshops; best practice guidelines for plant conservation techniques, including threatened plant translocation and germplasm conservation; national conferences; quarterly journal of ‘whats on’ in rare plant conservation; and solid conservation outcomes at the regional and local level.

Of the 22000 species of vascular plants in Australia, 14.8% are globally rare, threatened or extinct, according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants. 85% are endemic, and new species are still being discovered, like the Nightcap Oak, a large tree discovered only last year!

There are possibly 10 times the number of cryptogams (fungi, algae, lichens, mosses etc) as vascular plants, and we have barely begun to understand their diversity and biology, which poses significant issues in species and ecosystem management.

Nationally, the statistics on the status of threatened Australian Plants and Ecological Communities, according to the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act are as follows:

Category	No. species (vascular plants)	No. species (non-vascular plants)	Ecological communities
Endangered	516	1	23
Vulnerable	649	1
Total: 1190

(Source: Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 1999. Commonwealth of Australia)

For our population, the most daunting statistic is the 64 plant species that have become extinct since European contact. Managing the rare flora of the nation to ensure that we do not lose more species is the key task of the Australian Network for Plant Conservation.

Ten years ago, a conference was held to discuss the state of play in plant conservation in Australia. The conference was initiated by botanic gardens, wishing to increase and coordinate the role of botanic gardens in conservation, and was hosted here in Canberra by the Australian National Botanic Garden. Due to the wide variety of other players who are important in the overall picture of plant conservation, groups from industry, community and government were invited to participate. Major international networks in plant conservation, the IUCN, Botanic Gardens Conservation International and the Center for Plant Conservation, based at Missouri Botanical Garden in the US, attended, and subsequently collaborated with founding network members to draw up a successful proposal for the creation and funding of the Australian Network for Plant Conservation.

Today, in its tenth anniversary year, the ANPC is internationally acclaimed for its success in drawing together an integrated network from what was essentially a botanic gardens vision. It is being adopted internationally as a model in countries as diverse as Indonesia and Canada, and acts regionally as the Australasian Plant Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission.

The ANPC has grown to encompass over 400 members – botanic gardens, arboreta, community groups and individuals, all with one shared vision – conservation of Australia’s unique and imperilled rare plants. No other organisation provides this over-arching focus on in situ to ex situ conservation of plants.

As the conservation dollar gets harder to find and the extinction crisis grows more pressing, the call on the services of the ANPC increases. Meeting this growing demand for on-ground action to conserve rare plants has prompted the ANPC to revitalise its charter for meeting the national issues on plant conservation. How this charter meshes with the national focus of botanic gardens and arboreta in Australia and New Zealand represents an exciting new challenge for the ANPC into the next decade.

If you would like to know more about the ANPC and its international conservation partners contact the National Secretariat,

The ANPC is an incorporated, not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the conservation and protection of Australia’s rare and threatened plant species.

The Third National Plant Conservation Techniques Course will be held at the University of Southern Cross, Lismore, NSW, 1st - 8th December 2001.

This high intensity course is designed to provide training in the latest techniques in managing and conserving rare plants. Contact ANPC for more information.

Australia's Virtual Herbarium (AVH)

Australia's Virtual Herbarium is an on-line botanical information resource accessible via the web. The AVH is a collaborative project of the Commonwealth, State and Territory herbaria, and is being developed under the auspices of the Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria (CHAH), representing the major Australian collections. It is the most significant national initiative ever undertaken by Australian herbaria.

The AVH aims to make botanical information freely available on-line in an integrated format so that a single query will harvest relevant information from all herbaria in real time and present the result as a single seamless report. It will present information from herbarium collections, nomenclatural and taxonomic databases, State and Territory checklists, flora information systems, image databases and archives, and other on-line sources of botanical data. The AVH provides the Australian herbaria with the ability to deliver reliable and authoritative botanical information to our ever-increasing range of stakeholders.

There are approximately 6 million botanical collections in the major Australian herbaria, only 40% of which are currently recorded in databases. These specimens are the working tools of scientists who contribute to our knowledge and understanding of biodiversity and conservation through the discovery, classification and description of our plant species. The information associated with each specimen relating to where and when it was collected, its correct botanical name, associated species and ecological preferences has great power when organised into a single distributed database system such as the AVH. This provides the only plant information system based on scientifically verifiable voucher specimens to ensure the currency of names as knowledge improves.

Managers and information technology staff from the Australian herbaria have been collaborating on this project with a vision of completing the data capture of all botanical specimens within 5 years. Concentrated efforts during 2000, and more intensive levels of lobbying, together with support from the Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council (ANZECC) resulted in all the States, Territories and Commonwealth Governments agreeing to work together on the AVH as a collaborative national project. All Australian governments and the private sector are financially supporting the specimen databasing phase of the AVH with a funding package of $10M. The allocation of funds, according to the needs of each participating herbarium, is managed by CHAH, while the private sector contribution is managed through the AVH Trust.

Each herbarium has embarked on the task of validating those collections already databased, and collectively databasing the remaining specimens, which number nearly 4 million. A user can access the AVH via the website of any participating herbarium and by 2006 it will be possible to extract a distribution map of most Australian plants for any region of Australia.

Australia’s Virtual Herbarium is a long-term commitment to making botanical information widely available. Capturing the backlog of existing specimen data is the first phase of the AVH, and enables the collections information to be used, for example, to plot species distributions or to generate species lists for defined geographical areas. The herbaria have already ventured into the domain of electronic floras and regional guides through building on the accurate documentation of over 60% of Australia’s vascular plant species.

Computer tools developed for the interactive identification of regional floras and of Australian plant families, genera and species will be accessible via the AVH, together with a growing resource of images, including line drawings and colour photographs.

The exciting innovation of the AVH provides a range of benefits to users of botanical information that has never been possible anywhere else in the world. Amongst these advancements the AVH will facilitate:

You can find further information about Australia’s Virtual Herbarium on the CHAH website at http://www.chah.gov.au/avh.html and a publicly accessible species mapper will be available early in 2002.

The Tasmanian Arboretum

A group of Devonport residents met, formed a steering committee and started the Tasmanian Arboretum as an incorporated body in 1984. Funds were raised, a suitable property sought and with Bicentennial Funding 47ha at Eugenana was purchased in 1988. This site contains a number of mature Eucalyptus that gave some immediate character to the landscape under development.

We remain a membership organization with much of our plant maintenance being done by volunteers. Fortunately Devonport City Council supports us with a grant for part of the cost of grass control and infrastructure maintenance and some of this is contracted out.

We have more than 1656 specimens including this year’s plantings. Although not all the site is under development it has been divided on a geographic basis to represent the continents with additional sections for flora of Gondwanic origin, of New Zealand and of Tasmania. Africa, part of North America and the Himalaya are not under development at this stage.

Not all of our plants are provenanced but it is our preference to have such plant material. About 95% of our plants are labelled.

For their centenary the Master Builders Association donated our Visitor Centre and community input has led to the donation of other infrastructure.

The site has the Don River and Melrose Creek flowing through, an ornamental lake and a number of natural springs. To add to the landscape there are several limestone rock outcrops among the rolling landform.

We were expanded to our current size of 58ha by a gift from North taking our natural bushland from 1 to 12ha. We also have a botanical annexe at Hogg Creek which is nearby. It is about 12ha and contains a waterfall and the majority has a high degree of naturalness.

We have no Tasmanian Tigers, they are extinct. However freshwater lobster, platypus, white [grey really] goshawk, swamp harrier, waterfowl and many smaller birds are resident along with pademelon and possum.

This year we are constructing a possum exclusion fence around most of the areas planned for planting. The topography prevents fencing for New Zealand and part of the Mediterranean sections. This will give us about 35ha free of the depredations of Trischosurus vulpecula and Psuedocheirus peregrinus viverrinus.

As you could expect from 150 years of development in a productive rural area the site has cultural artefacts. Railway formations, quarries and a lime kiln from early limestone exploitation. Melrose Creek does not follow its original course.

Open from 9am to sunset, every day of the year. So far we have only had floods to contend with, although these appear to have lessened following a willow removal program on our watercourses. This program is almost complete and replacement plantings of indigenous flora have commenced.

Future developments include further expansion of our new Australian Rainforest collection. Yes it is warmer in Tasmania. Expansion of the collection of 35 Southern Hemisphere conifer species and a further development of Eastern Asia with a focus on Angiospermae.

We are developing a website at http://www.deloraine.tco.asn.au/areboretum /index.htm and have e-mail: tasarb@microtech.com.au. Should you wish to write on paper we can be contacted through PO Box 370 Devonport Tas 7310.

CAREER DEVELOPMENT GRANTS 2001-2002

The Council of Heads of Australian Botanic Gardens (CHABG) will again offer two grants for career development to staff of all public botanic gardens in Australia. The Career Development Grants are offered annually and are made to assist in developing enhanced skills, experience or qualifications of individual staff in ways that will bring clear benefits to both the recipient and the recipient’s botanic garden.

All staff of regional botanic gardens, city botanic gardens and CHABG member gardens are eligible to apply. The maximum amount of each grant is $3,000.

Virginia Berger
CHABG Career Development Grants
CHABG Secretariat
GPO Box 1777
Canberra ACT 2601

GARDENS 2001 CONGRESS

Over 200 participants gathered in Canberra from 17-21 April for the inaugural Congress co-hosted by the Council of Heads of Australian Botanic Gardens and the Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra.

Stimulating presentations by an impressive list of keynote speakers from the USA, England, China and Australia headed the program and over fifty speakers addressed the theme, ‘Public Gardens in the 21^st Century: Conservation, Culture or Crass Commercialism’. Discussion sessions and workshops were also part of the program.

Delegates attended from Argentina, China, Indonesia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Africa, and every Australian State and Territory was well represented. Twenty-five participants, mainly from interstate and overseas, concluded the Congress with a field trip to the South Coast, with an overnight stay at Huskisson and a visit to Booderee National Park, Jervis Bay.

Responses to a post-Congress evaluation survey noted that the opportunity of networking with like-minded people with similar interests and experiences was felt to be the greatest benefit derived from the Congress. The high standard of the keynote speakers was also favourably commented upon. There was overwhelming support for a future congress.

PEOPLE

UPCOMING MEETINGS AND CONFERENCES

29 October – 2 November 2001
Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Jointly hosted by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne and the School of Botany at the University of Melbourne. This program will cover Robert Brown’s Victorian botanical explorations and collections, his place in nineteenth-century botany, and the future of the Port Phillip flora he first encountered in 1802.

American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta (AABGA) Annual Conference:

2001 – July 11-14, Denver Botanic Garden, Denver, Colorado
2002 – August 7-10, Royal Botanic Garden, Hamilton/Burlington (Greater Toronto Area)
2003 – June 29-July 2, Gardens of Greater Boston, Boston, Massachusetts.

Come and visit the Southern Hemisphere and experience the visitor educational and interpretation programs that take place ‘down under’. The Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney, Australia invites you to participate and attend the BGCI 5th International Congress on Education in Botanic Gardens.

RBGS consists of three sites: the well known gardens in the heart of the city next to the Opera House on Sydney Harbour; a cool temperate display garden 105kms away at Mount Tomah; and an extensive collection of Australian native plants at Mount Annan Botanic Garden, 90kms south west of Sydney.

Botanic Gardens Conservation International and the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney invite you to attend workshops, papers, poster and educational fair presentations from botanic garden educators and educators working in zoos, museums, plant science institutions, national parks etc concerned with plant-based education.

The congress will promote environmentally friendly practices, for example we will endeavour to minimise the use of paper leading up to the congress.

The Congress program will be finalised in the next few weeks. Please visit the web site regularly for further information: www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au

The Australian Network for Plant Conservation will present it’s third Plant Conservation Techniques Course in Lismore, NSW, on the 1-8 December, 2001. The course will be hosted by the Centre for Plant Conservation Genetics, Southern Cross University.

The course is suitable for those who are undertaking or wish to undertake practical plant conservation projects, including:

The Council of the Heads of the Botanic Gardens (CHABG) has provided a grant to assist employees of botanic gardens in Australia with course fees. The botanic gardens rate applies, however, there is a limit of 10.

NEW PUBLICATIONS

Botanic Gardens of Australia: A Guide to 80 Gardens features the plants and heritage of many different public gardens. It covers the history of each garden, indicates specialist features (eg statuary, sculpture, water features and rare plants), and notes the festivals and entertainments for which they are venues.

The gardens are grouped into sections by State, and within each section the numbered gardens are marked on the relevant State map. A box in each of the 80 entries gives practical information about opening hours, facilities, wheelchair accessibility, and guided tours.

The authors of this book have had a long association with the Australian National Botanic Gardens. Leslie Lockwood recently retired after 18 years at the ANBG. She also provided the inaugural secretariat service to the Council of Heads of Australian Botanic Gardens. Leslie retains her interest in botanic gardens as a member of the Management Committee of the Eurobodalla Regional Botanic Gardens. Jan Wilson manages the photographic collection at the ANBG and coordinated the gathering of data for the Directory of Australian Botanic Gardens and Arboreta. Murray Fagg manages the Visual Resources Unit of the ANBG. He has contributed photographs and illustrations to 11 books, including the well-known Australian Native Plants.

THE BOTANIC GARDEN

An online Newsletter for the Botanic Gardens of Australia and New Zealand

prepared by the
Council of Heads of Australian Botanic Gardens

ISSN 1446-2044

No.1 November 2001

From the Editors

About the Council of Heads of Australian Botanic Gardens

BGANZ? GA? What’s In A Name?

The Australian Network for Plant Conservation
– A decade of rare plant conservation.

Australia's Virtual Herbarium (AVH)

The Tasmanian Arboretum

CAREER DEVELOPMENT GRANTS 2001-2002

GARDENS 2001 CONGRESS

PEOPLE

UPCOMING MEETINGS AND CONFERENCES

NEW PUBLICATIONS

THE BOTANIC GARDEN

An online Newsletter for the Botanic Gardens of Australia and New Zealand

prepared by the Council of Heads of Australian Botanic Gardens

ISSN 1446-2044

No.1 November 2001

From the Editors

About the Council of Heads of Australian Botanic Gardens

BGANZ? GA? What’s In A Name?

The Australian Network for Plant Conservation – A decade of rare plant conservation.

Australia's Virtual Herbarium (AVH)

The Tasmanian Arboretum

CAREER DEVELOPMENT GRANTS 2001-2002

GARDENS 2001 CONGRESS

PEOPLE

UPCOMING MEETINGS AND CONFERENCES

NEW PUBLICATIONS

prepared by the
Council of Heads of Australian Botanic Gardens

The Australian Network for Plant Conservation
– A decade of rare plant conservation.