1. A note from CBCN Executive Director
2. Message from Ahmed Djoghlaf
3. Plant conservation in a changing world
4. Preparing to Launch the North American Botanic Gardens Conservation Strategy
5. Biodiversity, climate change, and cultural diversity
6. The urgent need for biodiversity information
7. Adapting to a Changing World
8. The Canadian University Biodiversity Consortium and a new biodiversity center at the Montréal Botanical Garden
9. Stopping the Green Invasion! Memorial University of Newfoundland Botanical Garden Takes Aim at Invasive Alien Species
10. What's Coming Up at CITES CoP 14
11. Letter from Wuhan: A report on the Third Global Botanic Gardens Congress
12. The Montréal Botanical Garden Formally Reinforces its Commitment to Biodiversity Conservation, and hosts a Wollemi Pine
13. Meeting of the Canadian Pollination Protection Initiative
14. Summer is around the corner. Make it count!
15. First Sustainability Camp: a Success
16. Earth Day Celebration at UBC Botanical Garden

Subscription information

If you would like to subscribe, have any questions or if would like to contribute a news item, please contact Yann Vergriete, newsletter editor or David Gailbraith, CBCN executive director:

yannvergriete@fastmail.fm
(514) 872-5420

dgalbraith@rbg.ca
(905) 527-1158 ext. 309

1. A note from CBCN Executive Director, David Galbraith, Royal Botanical Gardens

I'd like to welcome all CBCN Newsletter and Canadian Botanic Gardens Education Newsletter readers to our first joint issue! Starting with this issue, CBCN Newsletter, which has been published in various forms since 1996, will be merged and updated by the addition of the newsletter of the Canadian Botanic Gardens Educators Network as established under Investing in Nature: A Partnership for Plants in Canada.

This isn't the first time that we've brought two publications together. In 1999, the CBCN Newsletter merged with Plant Collections Newsletter: Canada, following a hiatus in the publication of the latter. Now it's been two years since we've put together a full issue of the CBCN Newsletter, and it's long overdue.

In part the gap in the publication schedule of CBCN Newsletter was due to organizational constraints at CBCN's host institution, the Royal Botanical Gardens. An update on RBG was published in the previous CBCN Newsletter. The short version of the story is that while RBG was undergoing substantial change the networking and outreach afforded by CBCN was somewhat in doubt. That doubt has now been erased, and RBG and CBCN once again have a robust partnership. The role of the network in linking up botanical gardens across the country is valued at all levels by our host institution.

For the time being, CBCN will be operated as a project of the Royal Botanical Gardens, and we will continue to provide our services to our members without charging membership fees. We may have to return to asking for memberships in 2008, but for the calendar year 2007 at least, members will not be asked for fees to join or remain on the membership list. This decision was made because we want to encourage membership and participation much more than we need to receive membership fees.

We welcome news from any institution or individual interested in helping out with CBCN. Our critical new role as one of the partners in the National Focal Point for Canada for the UN's Global Strategy for Plant Conservation is exciting, but it also needs lots of participation to be successful. In July I will be travelling to France to support the participation of the Canadian delegation during the 12th meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice, or ABSTTA, of the Convention on Biological Diversity. This working meeting is particularly important as it will include a detailed review of the progress made to date around the world on the GSPC itself. Following this meeting there will be more emphasis on the GSPC in Canada, and the National Focal Point will be leading in further consultations and program development. Among other things, we are hoping to use the CBCN Newsletter as the medium of communication linked to the National Focal Point for the GSPC.

Leading the project to put this issue together is our new editor, Yann Vergriete. Yann is based out of the Montreal Botanical Garden, and is leading the project to develop new educational resources for botanical gardens in Canada, a direct descendent of the original Investing in Nature: A Partnership for Plants in Canada project. His project, with support from the Museum Assistance Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage, is the third of three elements originally planned for MAP support. The first was a small-grants program in aid of educational and conservation programs at botanical gardens across Canada (2003-2004). The second MAP project supported adding increased content to educational web sites of botanical gardens and arboreta across Canada, as well as the development of the web pages for Canada on the BGCI web site (www.bgci.org/canada).