Professor Stephen Blackmore, Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, leads a world class research institute that is also a major public attraction and was voted by its peers to be one of the four top botanic gardens in the world. Blackmore holds Honorary Professorships at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow and at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Kunming Institute of Botany, and serves on the Boards of Botanic Gardens Conservation International, Edinburgh College of Art, the Little Sparta Trust and the Seychelles Islands Foundation and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Since his schooldays in Hong Kong he has been fascinated with China where most of his current research takes place.
He says of his talk: "I will show how the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), founded in 1670, finds kindred spirits in Chinese botanic gardens that are less than a century old but are now expanding as rapidly as the Chinese economy. Working together with Chinese botanic gardens, RBGE aims both to conserve plants and their habitats and to encourage changes in the way people in Scotland, China and around the world choose to live their lives. The challenges our planet faces are great but not insurmountable."
Chair: Hon George Grubb, Lord Provost