Abstracts, XIV OPTIMA Meeting, Palermo (Italy) , 9-15

XIV OPTIMA Meeting, Palermo (Italy), 9-15 September 2013
Ex situ plant conservation: Kew's Millennium Seed Bank partnership and Access
and Benefit Sharing Agreements
ULIAN T., SACANDE M., WILLIAMS C., ALI N.
Seed Conservation Department, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, U.K. Email: t.ulian@rbgkew.org.uk
Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank partnership is the largest ex situ plant conservation initiative
formed in the world and coordinated by the Seed Conservation Department of the Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew). It focuses on saving plant life and regions most at risk from climate
change and the ever-increasing impact of human activities and plants most useful for the future.
Seeds are collected and stored in seed banks in country and are duplicated in Kew’s Millennium
Seed Bank in the U.K. With a network of over 120 partners across 50 countries, the partnership has
already saved 10% of the world's flora and it is aiming to secure 25% of the world’s plant species
by 2020. Each project partnership is based on an Access and Benefit Sharing Agreement between
the RBG Kew and the partner institute and/or government committing to implement the letter and
the spirit of the Convention on Biological Diversity. This includes the sovereign rights of States
over their own biological resources and the authority of national governments to determine access
to genetic resources, subject to national legislation. Prior Informed Consent is obtained from appropriate
authorities and stakeholders, according to national legislation, before any seed collections
are made and before duplicate seed collections are transferred to the Millennium Seed Bank in the
U.K. Examples of project partnerships are given showing how RBG Kew co-operates with other
organisations to share fairly and equitably any benefits arising from the collection, study and conservation
of wild plant genetic resources, their progeny and derivatives.
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