The Millennium Seed Bank Project has been described by Sir David Attenborough as “perhaps the most significant conservation initiative ever…” and a small group of plant lovers establishing Lismore’s own Botanic Rainforest Gardens are doing their bit to contribute to it.

As part of a three year trial, these passionate volunteers are collecting seeds from endangered local rainforest plant species, which will ultimately end up being stored as part of the Millennium Seed Bank Project – run by the Kew Botanical Gardens in England.

According to Jan De Nardi, the President of Friends of the Lismore Botanic Rainforest Gardens, volunteers from the Mount Annan Botanic Gardens in Sydney contacted the group about contrubiting to the global project.  

“A couple of ladies from the Mt Annan Gardens visited our gardens last week to look at the rainforest seeds we have here,” says Jan. “They asked us to send rare rainforest seeds to the New South Wales Seed Bank, where they’ll be be tested for viability, stored and later hopefully sent to Kew, to be preserved for future use,” she said.

 “This is a huge project for a group of volunteer gardeners to be involved in!”

According to the Project’s website (www.kew.org/msbp), between 60 and 100,000 of the world’s plant species are under threat. By 2010, the Millennium Seed Bank will have collected 10% of the rarest, most threatened and most useful plant species known to man.

Some of these are rainforest seed species, specifically the rare fleshy fruit rainforest species like lillypillys and quandongs, which can only be found growing in the temperate-subtropical climates of the Northern NSW/South-East Queensland regions of Australia.

“We are losing many plant species, not just locally but around the world,” says Jan, “…mostly due to of threats resulting from human activity and population growth, things like land clearing, grazing and habitat loss. Of course, climate change is another major threat.

In terms of the range of plant species growing in the Northern Rivers region, our area is very unique in that it straddles both the temperate and subtropical rainforest climates.

“We have such a diverse range of species growing here – dryland species like eucalypts grow here (which don’t need a lot of rain) but we are also have consistent periods of high rainfall, so we also have a diversity of unique rainforest species – we have them all!”

As part of this trial, the volunteers’ involvement is mainly in collecting the endangered fleshy fruit species, which they’ve already started sending to the NSW Seed Bank for testing, storage and eventually, to be sent to Kew.

“For dryland species, seeds are generally dried and stored at temperatures around -16 degrees, but fleshy fruit seeds such as the species found in our region need a different method of treatment and storage to keep them viable,” adds Jan.

While the NSW Seed Bank is already sending rare and endangered dryland species to Kew, such as acacia seeds, eucalypts and banksias, the Bank is using the rainforest seeds that Jan and fellow volunteers are sending to test ways to dry them and store them in conventional seed banks, before they can be sent to Kew.

So there you have it. A group of passionate seed and plant lovers contributing to a global seed conservation network, capable of safeguarding wild plant species.

“The Millenium Seed Bank Project will make a big difference to local, national and global plant conservation,” says Jan. “We’re really happy to be a part of it!”

The Lismore Rainforest Botanic Gardens are at the Wyrallah Road waste facility.

Posted: Tuesday August 26, 2008