Science Cafe will be a Zoom series for the rest of this year. It is recommended to register using the link beforehand.

Talk Title: Orchid Conservation: Where do we go from here?

A biology lecturer by profession and an amateur grower. In my spare time I earned a research degree for my investigations into the problems of the long-term storage of orchid seed. I took early retirement to work full-time in orchid conservation, and in 2007 I became Project Manager of Orchid Seed Storage and Sustainable Use (OSSSU). OSSSU began as a Darwin Initiative project based at the Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, with the aim of establishing a global network of orchid seed banks. A past editor of The Orchid Review, I regularly write pieces for popular orchid journals on a wide range of subjects, and have written (and illustrated) a four books published by Kew: Growing Orchids from Seed (with Margaret Ramsay), Growing Hardy Orchids (with Margaret Ramsay, Phillip Cribb and John Haggar), Growing Windowsill Orchids and Growing Orchids. An educator by nature, I regularly give talks to both UK and International audiences.

I open with a look at the problems facing orchid conservation today, This is followed by a consideration of a range of possible solutions, with a particular focus on involving amateur growers and the wider community. I have been fortunate in that I have travelled the world looking at various orchid conservation projects over the past few years. I will examine a number of these in my talk, and discuss some possible ways forward.