Statement from Foreign Scientists on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary Celebration of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden

Updated: 2009-07-10 13:48

W. John Kress

National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution Washington, DC, USA and Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden The Chinese Academy of Sciences Mengla, Yunnan, China

I would like to begin by thanking my colleague and friend the Director of XTBG Dr. Chen Jin for his invitation to participate in this anniversary symposium and his invitation to provide a brief statement representing the foreign scientists present at this conference celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden. Why should I be asked to provide this opening statement?

I have been fortunate to be associated with XTBG for over a decade and have watched the impressive growth of the garden during that time. My first encounter with the Garden was in 1995 when I couldn’t even correctly pronounce the name “Xishuangbanna.” At that time I had attended the Second International Symposium on the Ginger Family, which had been hosted by the South China Botanical Garden. That trip was my first visit to China and I was just beginning work on the taxonomy and phylogeny of the gingers. I was lucky at that time to meet Qing-Jun Li, who was also just developing an early interest in the Zingiberaceae as a young scientist and he, along with his wife, Yong-Mei Xia took care of me during my stay. Together we climbed the limestone mountain near the Garden to find an extremely rare genus of ginger called Pommereschia, which to this day I have never encountered again the wild. At that time I saw XTBG at the start of its transition from a local tropical garden to a modern botanical garden with advanced programs of education and research.

Since that first visit I have been collaborating with Dr. Li and members of his research group on many aspects of the biology of the gingers, including field observations and laboratory experiments. I have hosted a number of his staff and students at our lab at the Smithsonian, including Qing-Jun for numerous visits, as well as Dr. Xia Yong-Mei, Dr. Liu Ai-Zhong, Dr. Zhang Ling, and hopefully many more of his group will come to the Smithsonian to learn about and share our collective knowledge of tropical plants.

I was also honored in 2003 to be invited to be one of the first Foreign Adjunct Professors in the Chinese Academy of Sciences at XTBG. And in 2006 through the efforts of Qing-Jun and Chen Jin I was awarded the Caiyun Medal by the Yunnan Province for our collaboration and long-lasting friendship. I am delighted and in debt to XTBG for these privileges and honors.

So these are the experiences and credentials with which I am equipped to speak about the achievements and successes of XTBG, especially in their research programs and international leadership in Forest Ecology, Tropical Plant Systematics, and Conservation Biology. But first I must recognize the great strides that XTBG has made in the development of landscape design and the botanical beauty of the gardens. Building on the basic structure that was established a half-century ago by the founders of the Garden, the aesthetic properties of the different sections both old and new have been greatly enhanced to attract visitors from around the world who seek the tranquility and splendor of tropical plant life. As in all botanical gardens such transitions are always in progress.

The programs of educational outreach and student training have also been greatly expanded over the last decade. Working with local indigenous and minority groups has resulted in their enhanced appreciation and respect for natural habitats in the Xishuangbanna region as well a new knowledge on the ethnobotany of these peoples. At the same time XTBG has provided excellent training opportunities for Masters and Doctoral candidates in ecology and evolutionary biology of tropical ecosystems. I have observed how these programs have added an important vibrancy to the Garden.

From my perspective as a research scientist at the Smithsonian, I have been most impressed with the scientific achievements of XTBG. It is impossible to cover the entire spectrum of research activities at the Garden so I will provide simply a few examples of the programs which I have seen in action first hand. With regards to the taxonomy of tropical plants, one of the recognized successes is the digitization of images of the entire herbarium at the Garden making these specimens accessible to researchers anywhere around the world. In tropical forest ecology, highly successful projects are now in progress on the evolutionary ecology of pollination and dispersal of gingers and figs a well as ecosystem function. Recently XTBG has established a new 20-hectar forest dynamics plot as part of Center for Tropical Forest Science worldwide consortium. I will speak more about research in the CTFS plots later today. I am equally impressed with the newly established program in Forest Genomics, headed up by Dr. Chuck Cannon, which will take the Gardens in new directions of understanding the evolution of tropical forest communities. Finally the new efforts toward the development of biofuels through genetic engineering and breeding programs for Jatropha and oil palms as alternative fuel sources promises to be an important new resource for innovation and funding for XTBG.

Perhaps one of the most impressive achievements is the leadership role that XTBG has taken in international tropical biology activities, especially with regards to the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation and other such organizations. ATBC is the largest professional society devoted to understanding and protecting the biodiversity of the tropics and XTBG has played a significant part in the activities of the Association. Both as Councilors in governing ATBC and as member so the editorial board of the journal Biotropica Dr. Chen Jin, Dr. Cao Min, and Dr. Li Qing-Jun have played important roles. XTBG also hosted the ATBC Annual Meeting in Kunming in 2006 bringing to China tropical biologists from around the world. The Garden has recently taken an innovative step by proposing to launch a new open access on-line journal on tropical conservation biology. This effort has been initiated in conjunction with the Asian-Pacific Chapter of ATBC with Chen Jin as its current president. These are all hardly trivial endeavors and reflect the important role that XTBG is playing in the international scientific arena.

I should also mention that XTBG will be hosting the 5th International Symposium on Ginger Family in July of this year and Qing-Jun was able to out-compete the Smithsonian, who also bid on hosting the conference!

Why do we and XTBG even want to conserve tropical forests? It is importrant to ask this question in the context of celebrating the past and future of this Garden. Scientists, many working in the tropics, were among the early town criers who alerted the world to the expanding degradation of natural habitats and the pending extinction of species due to human activities. The earliest rationale for saving these habitats and preventing extinction was the morale obligation of the citizens of the planet to respect life in all its forms. This reason for protecting ecosystems was soon replaced by the need to put an actual monetary value on biodiversity in order to enhance the respect for it, which led to the recognition of the importance of the intellectual property rights of species and local knowledge about them, especially that knowledge held by indigenous peoples living in high biodiversity areas. This rationale in many cases acted in certain ways to inhibit our abilities as scientists to study the organisms and their habitats. So far we have little to prove that the expected riches to be gained from natural products are real. So now we have moved into the current rationale of protecting ecosystems because of the services that they provide humanity, whether they are clean air, clean water, pollinators, or carbon sinks. Natural habitats must be preserved to maintian these services, which are vital to our continued existence on earth.

In conclusion in its fifty years of existence, XTBG has moved from a garden embedded in a landscape of changing forest use to a horticultural showcase of tropical plants and a world leader in education, research, and conservation of tropical plant species and habitats. Through the various programs in horticulture, science and outreach, especially during the last decade, XTBG has grown to be a recognized leader in China and the world in the field of tropical botany and ecology. The redesign and development of the living collections as well as the construction of the new research center are encouraging signs that this growth in stature and productivity will continue in the decades ahead. The Mission of XTBG is to “Promote science advancement and environmental conservation through the implementation of collaborative multi-disciplinary research programs, horticultural exhibition and public education of tropical botany.” During this symposium we will look back and celebrate the achievements that have resulted from this mission as well as look to the future, especially in the conservation of tropical forests, for XTBG to continue to make substantial contributions in these areas crucial to our knowledge of tropical plant diversity and the protection of the planet.

Thank you.