Foreign Secretary digitises plant specimen from Guyana as part of Kew’s efforts to address climate and biodiversity crisis
Release date: 17 September 2024
The RT Hon David Lammy, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, visited the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew today to deliver his first major foreign policy speech announcing the Government's commitments to tackling the climate and nature crisis. After the speech, he digitised a plant specimen from Kew’s Herbarium collection.
In a live-streamed address inside the Temperate House at Kew Gardens, London, Mr. Lammy pledged to put the nature and climate emergency at the forefront of foreign policy. Alongside announcing plans to appoint new Special Representatives for Climate Change and for Nature, the Foreign Secretary committed to unlocking more climate finance and reverse the decline in global biodiversity. He said, “the threat of climate change may not feel as urgent as a terrorist or an autocrat. But it is far more fundamental. It is systemic, pervasive and accelerating towards us.”
Professor Chris Gilligan, the King’s Trustee, Deputy Chair and one of the science Trustees at RBG Kew, welcomed the Foreign Secretary to Kew and highlighted the myriad ways Kew researchers are contributing to efforts to address the nature and climate emergency.
He said “Kew’s experts in horticulture and science are working at the frontline of the biodiversity and climate crises internationally, in partnership with governments, scientists, and communities. They do this to provide the evidence and monitoring to shape much needed solutions, before it is too late.”
“We share the belief that reaching net zero by 2050 won’t be possible without working with nature, but at the current rates of biodiversity loss, we risk losing nature’s secrets before they can be unlocked, and with that we lose ways of mitigating and adapting to climate change. Biodiversity is a valuable and largely untapped resource and at Kew, we know that plants and fungi offer solutions to many of the challenges we face. The need for concerted, global action has never been greater.”
In his speech, Mr. Lammy said, “my Father used to bring me to Kew Gardens. I mean, I look back, he’s now not alive so I can’t ask him, but I now realise he brought me here to somehow be in touch with Guyana and those rainforests.”
Kew has embarked on an ambitious project to digitise all eight million plant and fungal specimens held in their collection, and with over half of the collection digitised, Mr. Lammy’s contribution will be part of a groundbreaking endeavor to conserving the world’s biodiversity. The specimens will be available online to help researchers, conservationists, and nature enthusiasts around the globe access important botanical information that aids the study and preservation of species.
Head of Collections at Kew, Dr. Alan Paton said, “Kew’s Herbarium collection is of global value, so it is critical that we make it as openly accessible as possible to researchers studying solutions to the environmental crises around the world. We are delighted that the Secretary of State will be forever immortalised within our collection, as his name is stored within the metadata as of that specimen. This permanent record not only recognises his dedication but also ensures a commitment to caring for nature for generations to come.”
About Kew’s Digitisation Project
The aim of Kew's Digitisation Project is to transform Kew’s Science Collections into a global online resource by imaging all 7 million Herbarium and 1.25 million Fungarium specimens, enabling some of the most critical challenges facing humanity, such as climate change and habitat degradation, to be addressed. To date 6.15 million specimens have been imaged, with all these collections having their data transcribed and globally accessible by the end of March 2024.
About Norantea guianensis
A member of the Marcgraviaceae, a family which is native and endemic to the Neotropics and is known to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. It is used medicinally in South America to treat burns and wounds, and its fibres are used to make baskets and other similar items. The name Norantea comes from “Conoro-antegri” which is the vernacular name for this species in the Carib Kari’nja language. This species is known by several different common names in several languages. In English it can be known as the beacon, red hot poker vine or red popcorn vine.
About Kew Science
Kew Science is the driving force behind RBG Kew’s mission to understand and protect plants and fungi, for the well-being of people and the future of all life on Earth. Over 470 Kew science staff work with partners in more than 100 countries worldwide to halt biodiversity loss, uncover secrets of the natural world, and to conserve and restore the extraordinary diversity of plants and fungi. Kew’s Science Strategy 2021–2025 lays out five scientific priorities to aid these goals: research into the protection of biodiversity through Ecosystem Stewardship, understanding the variety and evolution of traits in plants and fungi through Trait Diversity and Function; digitising and sharing tools to analyse Kew’s scientific collections through Digital Revolution; using new technologies to speed up the naming and characterisation of plants and fungi through Accelerated Taxonomy; and cultivating new scientific and commercial partnerships in the UK and globally through Enhanced Partnerships. One of Kew’s greatest international collaborations is the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership, which has to date stored more than 2.4 billion seeds of over 40,000 wild species of plants across the globe. In 2023, Kew scientists estimated in the State of the World’s Plants and Fungi report that 3 in 4 undescribed plants globally are already likely threatened with extinction.