Introduction

Climate change presents a significant threat to plant conservation, a 2-3°C temperature rise could lead to half the world’s plant species being threatened with extinction. The UN Sustainable Development Goal Climate Action (2030) is a key target for halting the climate crisis, but we only have 5 years left to achieve our goal. We need urgent collective action and the ability to reach millions of people, to create more sustainable, inclusive consumption, and ensure support for plant conservation. 

BGCI’s global network of 950+ botanic gardens has a greater collective reach than any single plant conservation organisation in the world, presenting the opportunity to engage and empower hundreds of millions of people to take meaningful action. 

With a grant from the Big Give’s Green Match Fund, BGCI has developed a Declaration of Intent on Climate Action Education. 

Workshop held at the 11th International Congress on Education in Botanic Gardens (ICEBG)

The 11th ICEBG took place in Seoul, South Korea in June 2025. This event was attended by over 1,700 delegates from 53 countries. The project was announced at the Congress, and two workshops were held to design the declaration. The workshops aimed to identify activities that our members are already doing in education to contribute to climate change solutions, and identify new areas and example activities that collectively would have the greatest impact.

From this workshop seven key goals were identified, and these goals form the foundations of the Declaration. Following on from the Congress the draft Declaration was developed, win consultation with BGCI’s Education Consortium (a group of individuals that represent botanic garden education across the globe).

The Declaration of Intent

The Declaration of Intent on Climate Action Education for Botanic Gardens and Arboretums is a document that outlines the commitment that our network makes to address climate change challenges, outlines seven key goals where we can have the most impact, and provides example activities under each goal.

This Declaration covers the period 2026-2030 and invites botanic gardens and arboretums to sign up to the Declaration, agreeing to contribute to at least one of the seven goals.

These goals are wide ranging and designed to ensure that there is a goal that every organisation can contribute to, regardless of size, location or budget. Some organisations may feel that they are only able to contribute to one, where as others may choose to view the goals as a ladder or progression and work their work across all of them.

The intention is that each organisation commits to contribute to at least one of the seven goals but it is up to each organisation to decide what that commitment looks like and how many goals they can contribute to.

The seven key goals

1. Build the foundations for nature connectedness and climate learning
2. Collaborate to embed climate change education (relevant to plants, carbon and ecosystems) into school curriculums
3. Empower our visitors/audiences to take climate action
4. Influence government policies and agendas (local to international)
5. Empower the next generation of climate conscious youth and communities
6. Build the right partnerships to mobilize change and increase cooperation
7. Build high-trust relationships to increase inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility of our programming through community outreach so that no-one is left behind.

How does the sign up work?

Sign up can be from an individual (within an organisation), a team or the whole organisation. The commitment that each signatory makes is for one year (i.e. January to December 2026 initially). During sign up, individuals will be asked to provide a baseline of what their organisation is currently doing under these seven key goals, and will then be asked to commit to at least one goal, under which they agree to develop activities or programmes that will contribute towards that goal.

At the end of each year, those signed up will be asked to report (briefly) on their activities under the Declaration for that year, and be invited to sign up for the following year.

Support available

BGCI will be developing a suite of support and training tools to inspire and motivate gardens and arboretums to take part. This will include regular webinars, updates in our GLOBE newsletter and training modules. In addition we hope to have some small grants available to support organisations to implement their activities. More details to follow.

When will the Declaration be launched?

The Declaration is due to be launched in January 2026, a link to the Declaration and details of how to sign up will be available here.