Plant Conservation in the 21st Century: The Role of Horticulture

World population has grown from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 6.8 billion today, and is predicted to reach approximately 9 billion by mid-century.  Levels of consumption are rising, with perhaps 2 billion people in developing countries (which comprise 84% of the world population) joining the middle class over the next few decades.  Technologies that seemed benign and helpful when they were introduced are often proving harmful to the environment.  About one-sixth of the world’s people are undernourished, 100 million at any one time on the verge of starving to death.  Overall, the Global Footprint Institute estimates that we are using about 130% of the world’s sustainable capacity on an ongoing basis, so that our environment is becoming less diverse, less healthy, and with fewer opportunities as time passes.  More than half of the world’s estimated 350,000 species of plants are likely to disappear from nature during this century, so that bringing them into cultivation and seed banks is of vital importance, while reintroducing them into nature for the long term is extremely chancy in a world of global climate change and widespread alien invasive species.