You know Naples Botanical Garden as a beautiful space to connect with nature, spend time with loved ones, and celebrate the cultures of the subtropics.
But did you know we are also part of a growing, global effort to conserve plants?
We’re partnering with other botanical gardens and arboreta in Latin America and the Caribbean, regions climatically similar to Naples, to identify and conserve threatened plants, conduct research, and share our living collections order to safeguard plants against the mounting pressures of climate change, natural disasters, invasive species and human development.
Twenty percent of the world’s plant species are in danger of extinction, according to the Convention on Biological Diversity. Seed-bearing plants are disappearing at a rate that’s 500 times higher than expected as a result of natural forces alone, notes a study in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
Despite figures like those, we at the Garden insist on acting out of hope, not despair. Visit the links below to find out how we are making a difference in Southwest Florida and beyond.
Protecting Wild Plants
The best way to save plants? Take care of the land on which they are found.
A Living Collection
Like a museum, library or bank vault, botanical gardens safeguard the world’s plants by collecting them, growing them, displaying them, sharing them, and preserving their genetic material.
Global Contributions
Naples Botanical Garden and its partners are racing to protect tropical and subtropical plants from threats such as global warming, sea level rise, and habitat loss.
Restoration &
Resilience
We’re demonstrating how to heal the land and exploring nature-based solutions to environmental challenges.
Read about our ongoing conservation work in our latest issue of Conserve.
What’s new in Conservation?
We share internal news updates from the Garden’s Conservation team soon as they happen.
Recent Conservation News
- Naples Botanical Garden Seed Bank Sees Results
- Rare Florida Panther Caught on Garden Wildlife Camera
- Why We are Aflame over Protecting Biodiversity Hotspots
- Can plants from the wild save our food crops?
- Mind Your (Buttonwood Tree) Boundaries!
- Invasive Pest Forces a Tough Decision About Fate of a Tree
Conservation
Horticulture
If you think “collecting” is as simple as gathering seeds in the wild and growing them in your greenhouse, think again. We first need to understand the conditions in which they grow in the wild, from soil content to the amount of light they receive to the pollinators they depend on. Our staff’s research, in tandem with the contributions of partnering gardens throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, helps us understand what it takes to grow backup collections of threatened plants in our Garden. We take care to ensure we’re conserving and growing plants with wide genetic variations.
“Growing one plant in one pot is a certain, rather limited challenge. To grow 200 plants for an indefinite period and maintain the genetic diversity among them is not the same challenge 200 times over. It is a quantitatively and qualitatively different challenge, and far more a difficult one.”
—Susan Wallace, The Role of Horticulture in Plant Conservation
Third International Botanic Gardens Conservation Congress, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1992
