Irish Tree Society
INAUGURAL ANNUAL LECTURE
Wednesday 15 April 2015 at 15.00
National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin
Conifers in Crisis: the work of the International Conifer Conservation Programme
by Martin Gardner M B E, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
As a result of recent conservation assessments, some 200 of 615 conifer species worldwide are known to be threatened with extinction by human activities. Since 1991, the International Conifer Conservation Programme (ICCP), based at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, has developed a range of initiatives - taxonomic, genetic, horticultural - to help conserve the most threatened conifer species. This includes establishing a network of in situ and ex situ sites internationally, including Ireland.
Martin Gardner has been associated with ICCP since its establishment and is a leading expert on this issue. He has published extensively and actively for the past 20 years on endangered conifers, especially those of Latin America (notably Chile) and New Caledonia. He has visited over 30 countries to study and collect research materials of threatened conifers. We may, therefore, look forward to an informative and well-illustrated account of conifers worldwide, several of which may be familiar to us in Irish gardens (such as Fitzroya cupressoides, whose genetic diversity has been studied in detail by Martin).
This is a public lecture, open to ITS members, their friends and members of the public. We hope to see you there.
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