Plants to combat climate change

Internationally-renowned conservation biologist Professor Stephen Hopper will present novel ideas on how we can use plants to mitigate climate change, in a public lecture at the University of Melbourne this week.

Professor Hopper, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in the United Kingdom - a world-famous scientific organisation - is visiting the University as part of the prestigious Miegunyah Fellowship. He says our ability to effectively tackle climate change is inextricably linked with preserving biodiversity.

‘There is a global necessity for wider public understanding of the importance of biodiversity to us all,’ he says.

?Plant diversity is invaluable to humanity. Plants provide us with clean air and water, fertile soil, medicines, food and fuel, and in the future will enable us to adapt to challenges such as climate change.

‘We cannot afford to sit back and watch plants disappear.’

Professor Hopper will speak to the public about the role botanic gardens have to play in protecting biodiversity in a rapidly changing environment, using his work at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew as an example.

Professor Hopper says the Kew Botanic Gardens employ a range of strategies that aim to harness horticultural and plant science expertise to support biodiversity conservation around the world.

The most ambitious of these strategies involves securing a quarter of the world’s wild plant species in a seed bank by 2020 to ensure the survival of species that are endangered, economically useful and particularly threatened by climate change.

Professor Hopper is widely known and respected for his dedication to plant conservation. Sir David Attenborough is behind the seed bank project and described it as ‘perhaps the most ambitious conservation initiative ever’.

As part of his fellowship, Professor Hopper will also take part in fieldwork, exploring the granite outcrops of Victoria.

‘Granite outcrops, because of their shallow soils and rich diversity of habitats, including rock pools and seeps, provide model systems for monitoring impacts on biodiversity of global warming,’ Professor Hopper says.

‘We need to work towards a world where plant diversity is conserved, restored and sustainably used to improve the quality of human life.’

When: Thursday 12 August, 6pm - 7pm
Where: Copland Theatre, Economics and Commerce Building, The University of Melbourne, Parkville (Melway Map 871, H6)