Kew Gardens collection could move to Reading
A world renowned collection of seed specimens could move to a new research centre in Berkshire
The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew has chosen Reading as its preferred site to move a world famous collection of preserved plant specimens.
The gardens host one of the world’s largest herbarium collections, with about 7 million specimens collected over centuries of exploration. These collections are intensively studied by staff and students, as well as by hundreds of visiting national and international researchers each year.
The specimens include representatives of species, and of genetically distinct populations within species, that no longer exist in nature.
The RBG said:
"While current infrastructure for hosting these botanical collections was ground-breaking when first opened in 1877, we are now facing two major challenges.
"Firstly, the increasing risks of fire, flood and pests. The constraints imposed by our historic buildings do not allow us to put in place mitigations that guarantee the protection of our specimens against those risks, nor to deal with those risks should they occur. The tragic destruction of some major biodiversity collections in recent years in catastrophic fires, for example, at Brazil’s National Museum and the Butantã Foundation, reminds us that this is a real possibility for any organisation, anywhere.
"Secondly, we are running out of space. A new herbarium wing has been added every 3-4 decades to cope with increasing volumes of specimens, but, even if we filled every space of our current buildings – leaving inadequate capacity for increasing numbers of scientists and visitors, image digitisation and collaborative workspaces – we would only be postponing the problem of finding a truly long-term solution."
It's for those reasons a search started to find a new site away from Kew which could be purpose built to store the collection. That search looked at 20 possible sites and eventually the Thames Valley Science Park just south of Reading has been chosen
Professor Alexandre Antonelli, Director of Science at Kew, said:.
"Kew’s executive and trustees have therefore committed to move the herbarium offsite to provide the best conditions of safety, access, and usage for generations to come. The preferred destination – the Thames Valley Science Park – is under an hour from Kew and Heathrow, and will continue to welcome international and national scientists.
"This is also where the Natural History Museum will move large parts of its collections. Once the specimens are relocated, the current herbarium will be restored and converted into a hub for research and training, with modern laboratories and public access. Biodiversity is in crisis. Kew is in a unique position to address this. A new herbarium is part of our plan to do so. "
Talks are now taking place with the University of Reading which owns the site, and a final decision over the move will be made later this year.
The process of securing funding, designing and building the facility, and moving the collections is expected to take 5-7 years.
Not everyone is happy though - a former director of the gardens said the idea of splitting the collection away from the living gardens was 'appalling'.