Perú Botanic Garden Network

Perú is considered to be in the 10 most biodiverse countries in the world, with 27 climates, 36 ecosystems and 25,000 species, and yet doesn’t have a Botanic Garden to articulate the small independent Botanic Gardens in all its territory. The role of a Botanic Garden is to maintain life collection of plants documented and inventoried for science, investigation and conservation, thus preserving the most quantity of species for future generations.

With this online platform we expect to create a network with all the collections in the country. It is with this platform that we will understand what species are being conserved in the different regions of Perú and what urges to be conserved in this country of so many diverse ecosystems. This network will help fill the gap of knowledge of exsitu and insitu conservation collections, focusing more in the conservation of endemic plants of each region. 

With climate change, natural hazards and antropic effects on natural landscapes, the botanic gardens must accomplish a lead role in conservation. That is why it is so important to know what is being conserved in the world.

Some countries have a legislation for collections that recognize botanic gardens and documented preservation of flora, but there´s also countries where the collections exist in an isolated manner, without systematization. Most countries have a leading Botanical Garden that articulates smaller collections in the country. 

Perú doesn’t have this, therefore, while we create the National Botanic Garden, there must exist a platform to help articulate the smaller collections that conserve endemic plants of the different regions. Perú has many open gaps of information and connectivity of its botanic collections that must be systematized to preserve the species of its territory.

 This will serve not only the different smaller botanic gardens to systematize their information and create a network, but also scientist, conservationists, and worldwide botanic gardens to know what is being conserved in the different regions of Perú, if what is being conserved is representative of the endemic flora of the regions, and to focus on the endangered species that are not being conserved.

Perú with its 25,000 species of plants, 30% of which are endemic must urgently systematize its collections in order to understand the exsitu conservation that is being represented in each local botanic garden of the different regions of its territory. It is why with this online platform that we will try to solve the connectivity gap by registering the data of the 33 local botanic gardens that have been identified. 

The platform will map the 36 ecosystems(MINAM ecosystem Map), and the 33 botanic regional gardens to systematize their collections, recording in the platform the endemism being conserved in each region, and thus obtaining the species that are not being conserved, this being critical for this species. This platform will be an open platform to any given user, so scientist from all over the world or other botanic gardens from around the world, or even kew Botanic Garden, could use to know what is being conserved from each ecosystem, the representative range of what is being conserved by each region and the gaps of what is not being conserved – or what areas don’t have a representative flora being conserved. 

More than target population I would like to address this in terms of scales. In a smaller scale, the ones who benefit of the online network platform are the local botanic gardens which will have their data systematized and organized in an open acess platform. Scientist, botanist, world botanic garden networks also could find this tool useful for their investigations. But if we see the bigger picture, this platform is helping Perú to organize its system of off situ conservation, and the whole world because every plant, every specie of the 36 ecosystems are important for future generations and future medicine use, amongst other. All species and their conservation are extremely important, and more now that the world is changing, and climates are changing and many species may not survive these changes. That is why we need to conserve them in in situ as well as in ex situ conservation, with seed banks and an herbarium. But first we need to track the data and systematize the information of this local botanic gardens in an online platform for everyone to access to this information. 

The online platform  will help systematize the different local ex situ collections  in the different regions of Perú. This platform will also serve to provide information of the endemic plants of the 36 ecosystems, thus analysing the data of the collections of the 33 botanic gardens, we will understand which regions  dont have a representation in the ex situ conservation. This would put these species in a critical condition may there be a natural hazard or an antropic effect in the territory. All this análisis is only the first step to the systematization of botanical garden collections of Perú.  

With JBNL, a group of botanists and forestry engineers, we have mapped the 33 botanic gardens in the different regions of Perú, and are working with the MINAM ecosystem map of Perú to identify the different layers of conservation on endemic species.  

An online service has already been sent to the Botanic Gardens in order to have the data of their collections. This data will then be compared to the geographical endemism to know what gaps of representation of the regional native flora is not being conserved in these botanic gardens, and what regions are not being represented in off situ conservation. 

Perú´s Botanic Garden Network is innovative because it will not only be a platform that will help organize the data of the species that are being conserved in their own geographic region, but will also allow to map the endemic species of each region that are not being conserved, permitting scientists and conservationist,  know through this application what species are in danger. 

Today this platform is mapping the collection of the 33 local botanic gardens that we have located in the different regions of Perú. At the same time with the group Pro Jardín Botánico Nacional (FOR A NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDEN) we are raising interest in order for the Peruvian Country to bring about the construction of the National Botanic Garden in order to articulate the off situ conservation of the country and the network we are trying to build.

This solution is part of a bigger team that is trying to bring about the National Botanic Garden in Perú. We are 20 in the group, where a woman that has today 100 years old brought us together 5 years ago to help her bring about this dream. 

In the team we have architects, landscape architects, biologists, forestry engineers, and biologists that have helped create botanic gardens or that manage them. So we are all in this dream together, to create a Network to relate the different local botanic gardens and a platform that will help us organize the data of ex situ conservation in the country and endemism by regions. 

All genders, different cultural backgrounds, different studies, of all members. 

Likewise the 33 botanic gardens are from all over Perú. There are even native cultures, like the Ese Eja, a native etnia of the Amazon in Madre de Dios, that has an etnobotanic garden in Infierno.