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Physical infrastructure and global capacity are both needed to fight biodiversity loss

A recent editorial in this journal1 highlighted how equity and access are essential to using the unique power of herbarium collections for understanding plant biology and mitigating environmental change. Many large collections, such as those held at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew), are global in scope and of particular value because of the comparative work enabled through their taxonomic, geographical and temporal comprehensiveness. However, such collections were partly developed under colonial regimes and are located far from the centres of biodiversity that they represent. An effective and just response to the extinction crisis that the planet faces must be as global as the collections themselves.

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References

  1. Nat. Plants 9, 1573–1574 (2023).

  2. CBD. Decision adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. cbd.int, https://www.cbd.int/doc/decisions/cop-15/cop-15-dec-09-en.docx (2022).

  3. Burbano, H. A. & Gutaker, R. M. Science 382, 59–63 (2023).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, UK

    Paul J. Kersey & Alexandre Antonelli

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  1. Paul J. Kersey
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  2. Alexandre Antonelli
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Correspondence to
Paul J. Kersey.

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Competing interests

P.K. and A.A. are employed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

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Kersey, P.J., Antonelli, A. Physical infrastructure and global capacity are both needed to fight biodiversity loss.
Nat. Plants (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-023-01594-8

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  • Published: 01 December 2023

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-023-01594-8

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