Seeds saved in Sussex! Superforest seeks success!

Handy bit of alliteration, eh?

Have you heard about the Millennium Seed Bank Project? It is an international conservation project coordinated by the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, UK, and housed in the Wellcome Trust Millennium Building in Sussex committed to preserving seeds from endangered plant species worldwide. Why save seeds? I'll let them explain.

All life on earth depends on plants. Plants are the basis of ecosystems in which all animals, including humans, live, survive and grow. By saving seeds we can save plants.

Despite our reliance on plants, we are at a crisis point. It is thought that 60,000 to 100,000 plant species are under threat. Direct threats to plant survival are climate change, habitat loss, invasive alien species, and over-exploitation. The root causes of these threats are difficult to control and include human population growth and socio-economic factors.

Seed banks provide an insurance policy against the extinction of plants in the wild and provide options for their future use. They complement in situ conservation methods, which conserve plants and animals directly in the wild. The Millennium Seed Bank already holds seeds from species thought to be extinct in the wild. In addition, seed banks provide a controlled source of plant material for research, provide skills and knowledge that support wider plant conservation aims, and contribute to education and public awareness about plant conservation.

My friends over at Superforest have embraced this cause and started their own Save-A-Seed Coalition. Jackson and company are working to raise the $3,000 needed to insure preservation of just one seed (and more, if all goes well). But wait--don't go away--I'm not here to ask for your donation. Nope, we just want to spread the word and make more folks out there aware that there IS such a project in existence and that it needs our help. So, I'm asking that you tell a friend (or two) and they'll tell two friends and so on and so on, just like the Faberge Organic Shampoo ads.

However, if you want to donate, we won't stop you and it will come back to you threefold, as Sister Bea used to say. Just see the button on the bottom of this post or go to the MSBP website. The seeds thank you and so do I.