Botanical Exchange Program: Volgograd Conference

It has been conference mode the last 2 days around here.

It was the conference on the Red Data Books for the different regions of Russia. What is a Red Data Book? It is a book that lists all the rare and endangered plant species of that specific region or oblast. It also provideds information about the plants; distributions, cultivation success, and descriptive data. This conference was a meeting between 14 different botanical institues including ours, to discuss the progress and problems facing these regions.

Oleg speaking to all the attendants

After listening to all of the speakers a common problem seemed to arise among everyone. It is a rule that if a species is listed in the federal Red Data Book and it grows in a region it must be listed in the regional Red Data Book. However Russia is obviously such a vast country, though I really didn't realize until I had expereienced myself, one plant might be rare and endangered in one region but have plenty of healthy populations in another.
Another problem is monitoring all the plants on the list and keeping all the information up to date. Once again another problem with the vastness of the country some areas can't be visited once a year or even every other year because there is just so much area to cover.
I was very impressed with the Red Data Book from Kazakhstan. It was the product of many years of work and it is in three languages; Russian, Kazak, and English. Every plant also has an illustration and detailed description.

Paulina Vesselova presenting Oleg Kazakhstan's Red Data Book as a gift. Paulina also traveled in the United States last October with us so it was wonderful to get to see her again!

Me and Jim also had the opportunity to present on the Garden and our work with conservation. It was a great opportunity to understand how a lot of their conservation work starts in their regions and it is with these books. Some regions discussed how they are working to conserve species by growing them at their botanical gardens, others in seed banks, and one I found very interesting, they are growing the rare and endangered species and selling them to the public as away to discourage poaching from natural communities.
After this frist day there was a conference dinner. I have experienced meals in Russia shared with quite a few people but our group on that night was about 15. In Russian tradition every person around the table gave a toast. Of course in Russia you toast with vodka, but you sip your vodka so you aren't consuming that much, if you are smart about it. Listening to Russians give toast is really something amazing. They are so passionate and poetic it is so much fun to take part in their culture. And much to my suprise there was another birthday celebration for me. I am absolutely blown away by the generosity of all the people I have meet while traveling in Russia and at the conference.

And they make some delicious cake

Day two was a follow up discussion about the problems presented during the conference.
However the highlight of the day was a ceremonial planting of the Syringa in front of Mamayev Hill. It was an amazing experience, today marked the 50th anniversary for this monument. They had veterans and survivors from the Battle of Stalingrad there as well as representatives from all the different nationalities that fought in the Battle. I was so deeply honored to be a part of this planting on such a historic site, it is something I will never forget.