Botanic Gardens and Genetic Conservation

Authors

  • Vernon Heywood University of Reading

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24823/Sibbaldia.2009.148

Abstract

No abstract

Author Biography

Vernon Heywood, University of Reading

Professor Vernon Heywood, Emeritus Professor of
Botany at the University of Reading, has had a long
and distinguished career in plant taxonomy and systematics and has trained generations of students who now occupy senior positions in many parts of the world. He is a graduate of the Universities of Edinburgh (BSc, DSc), where he was taught botany at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh under Professor Sir William Wright Smith, and Cambridge (PhD). His publications include the bestselling Flowering Plants of the World and its successor, Flowering Plant Families of the World, and Principles of Angiosperm Taxonomy co-authored with Peter Davis which for decades was the leading text in the field. In addition he has worked extensively on biodiversity and conservation issues in many parts of the world, particularly in the Mediterranean, Indian sub-continent and the Neo-tropics. He was senior consultant to the UK Overseas Development Administration (ODA /DFIC) on the building and equipment of a new National Herbarium in Dhaka, Bangladesh and a staff training and development programme.
During the past 20 years he has been especially concerned with developing strategies for the
conservation of germplasm of wild species of economic importance, including the wild relatives of
crop plants and medicinal and aromatic plants. He has been closely involved with botanic gardens throughout his career and was the founder director of the Botanic Gardens Conservation Secretariat (later Botanic Gardens Conservation International). During a period at IUCN, as Chief Scientist, he was responsible for developing a plant conservation programme and directed projects on centres of plant diversity, extinction rates in tropical forests, species reactions to global change, medicinal plant conservation and wild relatives of crop species. He co-ordinated and edited the UNEP Global Biodiversity Assessment, involving the collaboration of hundreds of scientists. He has served as a consultant for numerous agencies such as the World Bank Inspection Panel, UNDP, UNEP, FAO
and Biodiversity International, and has advised governments, ministries, universities and NGOs in
many parts of the world, including Bangladesh, Costa Rica, France, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, Lebanon, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Spain, Sri Lanka and Venezuela on conservation and biodiversity issues and on botanic garden development. He has published over 65 books and is the author of 400 papers in scientific journals.

References

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HEYWOOD, V.H. (1999). The role of botanic gardens in ex situ conservation of agrobiodiversity. In: Gass, T., Frese, L., Begemann, F. & Lipman, E. (Eds.) Implementation of the Global Plan of Action in Europe – Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Proceedings of the European Symposium, 30 June–3 July 1988, Braunschweig, Germany. International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, Rome, pp. 102–107.

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Published

2009-10-31

How to Cite

Heywood, V. (2009). Botanic Gardens and Genetic Conservation. Sibbaldia: The International Journal of Botanic Garden Horticulture, (7), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.24823/Sibbaldia.2009.148

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