Where we work

RBGE’s Centre for Middle Eastern Plants works closely with local and international partners across the Middle East and Southwest Asia to address biodiversity knowledge gaps, support conservation and sustainable use, and strengthen local capacity.

With around 20,000 plant species and high levels of endemism, there are large gaps in knowledge of biodiversity in this region, which faces environmental and societal challenges including migration, poverty, security, habitat loss, changes in traditional land management practices, and climate change.

Read more: Centre for Middle Eastern Plants.

RBGE’s work in China is built on over a century of collaboration and we care for the largest collection of wild-origin Chinese plants outside China. We are twinned with the Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB), Yunnan, with whom we jointly run the Lijiang Field Station on the Yulong Xue Shan in Southwest China, and work with many other Chinese botanical institutes. Together, we build knowledge of this hugely rich flora (home to almost ten percent of all plant species), develop globally-applicable genomic approaches to biodiversity science, support ecosystem conservation across the region, and co-create in-country capacity for science and horticulture.

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The Himalayas are a Global Biodiversity Hotspot with a profound influence on Asia’s climate, biodiversity and cultures. The impact of climate change in the Himalayas is predicted to be second only to that in Arctic, creating an urgent need to improve understanding of the region’s biodiversity. With connections to the region dating back over two centuries, RBGE now runs a diverse programme of collaborative research supporting conservation and sustainable development.

Read more: Flora of Nepal.

Our work in this extremely diverse region has grown over the past 50 years in collaboration with a wide range of partners across Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam. Projects include baseline species discovery and conservation assessment, production of floristic, monographic and phylogenetic publications, and joint species conservation activities to combat challenges including deforestation, forest conversion, pollution and population growth.

Read more: South-East Asia.

Our work in tropical South America, in partnership with institutions across the region, focuses on globally-significant hotspots of plant diversity across rainforest, dry forest, savannas and mountains in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina. We focus on species discovery and evolution, biome characterisation, habitat conservation, crop wild relatives, and land use change.

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Our collaborative work in Africa concentrates on tropical biodiversity, threats and threat mitigation, focusing on the coastal forests of East Africa in Tanzania, the rainforests of the Congo Basin, and the grassland and savanna of southern Africa and Madagascar.

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Scotland has an outstanding diversity of cryptogams: fungi, algae and plants without seeds such as ferns, mosses, liverworts and hornworts. It is home to the best remaining examples of globally-rare temperate rainforest characterised by epiphytic lichens and bryophytes, as well as iconic habitats such as Caledonian pinewoods, blanket peat, and machair.

We run extensive research, conservation and outreach programmes aimed at understanding Scotland's biodiversity, the threats it faces and its responses to environmental change; developing management solutions to natural habitats; and connecting plants and people to enhance sustainability and environmental stewardship. We work closely with NatureScot, and a wide range of other organisations to help deliver the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy. We are members of the Scottish Consortium for Rural Research and the Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforest. We also work closely with natural history organisations such as BSBI and the citizen science community to support biological recording.

Read more: Scottish Biodiversity.