New Year Honours 2005 - Diplomatic Service and Overseas List (31/12/04)

New Year diplomatic service award for Scots horticulturalist

The pioneering work of a Scottish horticulturalist in China has received official recognition, with the news that Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Deputy Director of

Horticulture David Paterson has been awarded an MBE for services to UK-China co-operation on biodiversity conservation, following a nomination to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by the British Ambassador in China.

The award comes as Paterson (46), who is Project Manager of Lijiang Field Station and Botanic Garden, prepares to leave for a landmark visit to the project in the Yunnan Province of SW China. It marks more than 15 years’ commitment to conservation and collaboration with Chinese authorities, academics and rural people. The announcement follows a pledge of backing by the Scottish Executive, made by First Minister Jack McConnell in October when he declared Lijiang the UK’s first joint scientific laboratory in China and announced funding to extend the work being undertaken.

Acknowledging his New Year Honour award, Paterson said the honour came at an important juncture for the Lijiang project, as the Scottish-Chinese collaboration embarked on the next stage of its 20-year challenge to establish a fully operational botanic garden on the Yulong Xue Shan (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain). “I may be picking-up this award, but it is all about a team effort and the efforts of a unique group of people,” he commented.

“Contributors and supporters range from ambassadors to senior diplomats, scientists and horticulturalists, as well as business people and those who live in the tiny mountain villages of one of the most remote corners of our planet. I am no more nor less than the catalyst who brings them together.”

News of the award was welcomed Professor Stephen Blackmore, Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, who will also fly to China for a Burns’ Day celebration at Lijiang, on Tuesday, January 25, officially marking the next stage of the new Botanic Garden, the first event in the Year of British Science in China. “This award not only bears testament to David Paterson’s commitment to the Lijiang Field Station and Botanic Garden, it reflects his language skills and unique ability to work with the Chinese people at all levels,” said Professor Blackmore.

“Resources provided by the First Minister will allow the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh to play a central role in Year of British Science, when the focus is on botanic gardens and plant conservation. As part of this we will host the First International Jade Dragon Seminar at the field station, when attention can be drawn to the challenges issues facing habitats such as those of the Yulong Xue Shan.”

ENDS

David Paterson’s MBE in the New Year Honours was announced in the Diplomatic Service and Overseas List.

Interviews are available until Friday, January 7, 2005

Lijiang Field Station and Botanic Garden is an externally funded conservation project, headed by RBGE, Kunming Institute of Botany and Lijiang Alpine and Plant Research Institute of Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Science. The partnership’s goal is to conserve the habitats, plants and other organisms which live and depend on the Yulong Xue Shan (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain) in Yunnan Province, South West China.

Further background notes can be found below. For further information please call Shauna Hay on 0131 248 2900 or Ellie Carter on 0131 248 2901.

Lijiang Field Station & Botanic Garden – Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

To put the importance of the mountain in context: Scotland plays host to 800 flowering plant species, Yulong supports some 3,000 species. As a whole, China has around 30,000 plants species – one-eighth of the world’s total. Today, there are tremendous challenges in avoiding habitat destruction, describing new species and raising public awareness of issues which are of fundamental importance to the way we live. New plants are still being discovered and others are being wiped out before they are identified.

There is considerable tangible causation. For example, the multi-million pound boom in herbal medicine is calculated to be threatening to wipe out up to a fifth of the species on which it depends, wrecking plants’ natural habitats and jeopardising the health of millions of people in developing countries. As the international market rises to unsustainable levels, it must be recognised that many of the threatened plants are harvested by poorer communities whose livelihoods will suffer if the plants die out.

To address this, the Lijiang Project and Kunming Institute of Botany are working collaboratively to assemble a seedbank. At the same time, David Paterson is renting fields from farmers in the area of the field station, engaging the local communities directly in the conservation work. Horticulturalists, such as David, have a crucial part to play in conservation, using skills they have evolved from curated collections, they are now better equipped to grow endangered species in the wild. While, traditionally, a considerable amount of work relied on the repatriation of plants, international law is more complex since the Rio Convention, so field stations have come into their own by committing to long-term projects in situ. As part of the on-going project, provision continues to be made for Chinese botanists and horticulturalists to visit Edinburgh.

The Lijiang project is typical of the work being conducted by RBGE specialists in more than 40 countries around the globe. For more than 300 years, botanists and horticulturalists have left Edinburgh to explore different parts of the world and research the natural environment.

The Jade Dragon Snow Mountain lies in the North West of Yunnan Province, in SW China. Unusually, it is not part of a chain, but is separated on all sides by natural obstacles. Large areas of the mountain were explored and botanised during the late 19th and early 20th century by pioneers, such as George Forrest. Lijiang was first identified as a suitable site for a field station in 1937. However, it was in March 1999 that Professor Stephen Blackmore and Professor Hao, of Kunming Institute, signed a memorandum of understanding and the project was officially launched.

Throughout, close contact and communication has been kept with the Naxi people, who depend on the area’s natural resources for their day-to-day life. As part of this, it is accepted that increasing pressure on the land has resulted in some practices becoming non-sustainable, resulting in many plants facing extinction through habitat destruction.