News Published: 15 April  2025

In this month’s webinar on the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, we will be learning about Indicators for assessing and reporting on genetic diversity for the GSPC. Genetic diversity is important for biodiversity restoration, management, protection, monitoring, climate adaptation and benefit sharing (GSPC actions 2, 3, 4, 8, 11, and 13).

This webinar will explore how we can use indicators to monitor and better understand genetic diversity, with key examples of work already underway and how this knowledge can be used to better inform the public and policy makers. Additional progress and news from the GSPC will also be shared.

Our presenters will be Dr Sean Hoban (The Morton Arboretum) and Dr Alicia Mastretta-Yanes (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew). Both are leading plant geneticists and conservation biologists with extensive experience in setting up indicators for assessing genetic diversity and working with communities to gather biodiversity data and use of citizen science. They co-lead the Coalition for Conservation Genetics, which aims to work together to inform policy and protect genetic diversity.

Genetic diversity indicators and reporting contributes to a wider framework for reporting and monitoring of activities towards GSPC implementation that is currently being designed.

Time: 8 May 2025 – 3 pm BST