The Conservation Garden
The concept of the Conservation Garden was developed at the North Carolina Botanical Garden in the early 1990s to represent the many conservation-related activities that the Garden is pursuing.
What do we mean by the Conservation Garden? We describe the Conservation Garden in two ways. The "bottom-up" definition describes the individual programs that we have developed historically and which contribute to our sense of what the Conservation Garden is. These eight program themes are:
- Conservation through Propagation of native plants ensures that wild populations are not damaged by direct use
- Seed Banking and Reintroduction, an ex-situ conservation program that protects germplasm reserves as a last resort against extinction in the wild and for use in reintroduction of wild populations
- The Protection and Restoration of natural areas
- The elimination of Invasive Species and replacement with non-invasive alternatives
- Gardening in Nature's Context, which seeks to promote plants that support native biodiversity
- Sustainable Gardening, which seeks to promote environmentally friendly gardening practices
- Supplying critical Information on conservation of the flora of the southeastern United States and on the Garden's conservation programs
- People-Nature Relations, which describes how important plant diversity and natural areas are to the physical and psychological health of all of us
The second description of the Conservation Garden was inspired by the Hannover Principles of William McDonough and is "top-down" in the sense that it summarizes broad principles rather than individual programs. McDonough suggests that all human endeavors should be discussed under five headings. In the Conservation Garden, these five headings or themes are applied to all that the North Carolina Botanical Garden does:
- Air, for air quality indoors and out
- Earth, for recycling, non-toxic materials, and sustainably-produced products
- Fire, for energy use
- Water, for the lifeblood of gardens and human life and economies
- Spirit, for the spirit of all living things-the visitors, staff, volunteers, plants, birds, butterflies...
Last updated by Laura Cotterman on May 22, 2007 at 10:42:59 am.
