VOLUME 5 - 2012-2013 - ISSUE 1

5 Ky. J. Equine, Agric. & Nat. Resources L. 1 (2013).

BOTANICAL GARDENS: DRIVING PLANT CONSERVATION LAW

Article Written By: Amy Hackney Blackwell

The international botanical garden community is the largest plant conservation network in existence. Botanical gardens around the world collect endangered plants, save their genetic materials, and share germplasms, which are collections of organisms' genetic resources. In order to preserve endangered, threatened, and rare plants, botanical gardens must be able to collect wild plant materials and transfer them across international borders. Federal and state laws in the United States and international regimes, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), affect the actions that botanical gardens can take. Botanical gardens in the United States and around the world have enthusiastically adopted the CBD's principles of Access and Benefits Sharing (ABS), with many American botanical gardens creating their own ABS policies in the absence of the United States' ratification of the CBD.