The Australian National Botanic Gardens are a wonderful part of Canberra a truly significant part of this city's heritage, and an important national asset.
Rather than being left to rot, their task is ever more pressing and ever more important.
However, as we deal with drought and climate change and tough economic times, it is also important that we ask ourselves some tough questions to ensure that the gardens continue to be relevant to the community that they serve and are as efficient and effective as possible.
We're not alone. Botanic gardens right around the world are facing similar challenges, diversifying their funding sources, achieving more through partnerships and collaboration, reviewing and making sure their collections are fit for their designed purpose, that their research is relevant to on-ground conservation and that their education and public engagement programs are making a difference.
This requires entrepreneurism, innovation, flexibility, responsiveness and accountability. While this is a major task for any organisation, it is a challenge that the gardens and staff are tackling with great energy and enthusiasm.
A new management plan for the gardens is being prepared. In the process we're reviewing all of our programs and the living collection itself to make sure they are up to this challenge.
This is a big task and one that we are working through in close consultation with a range of experts, colleagues and community interests, including the passionate and dedicated Friends whose input and support has been invaluable.
This wide engagement is essential to improving our focus and to understanding what and where we can do better or more effectively.
It is a process that will culminate in a new plan which I am confident will address many of the issues raised in the last week or so in this newspaper.
But we have not been idle, waiting for a new management plan before taking up these challenges.
Recognising the threat of climate change, the gardens led a dialogue with other major Australian botanic gardens to develop a climate change strategy for botanic gardens, which was endorsed by federal and state Ministers last year.
This has articulated a vital role for botanic gardens as institutions that focus on holding collections of plants at risk of disappearing in the wild that builds our understanding of their cultivation requirements and then assists with rehabilitation and restoration projects. That is, botanic gardens are becoming much more outward-looking.
More recently the National Botanic Gardens have redirected some resources into building a substantial seedbank. There is a clear opportunity to play a national leadership role in working with our state and territory colleagues in this regard. Our current focus is on collecting and storing seeds of our unique alpine flora at major risk from impacts of climate change.
We were delighted to recently receive, with our partners at Australian National University and the Friends, a grant for $253,000 from the Australian Research Council to develop this project. Our field officers are already engaged in this important work in the Australian Alps.
The gardens also make a major contribution to national conservation biology research through the Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research. The centre, a joint venture with CSIRO, is where most of the gardens' science effort is focused about a quarter of the gardens staff are based there. It also houses the Australian National Herbarium the world's largest and most complete collection of Australian plant specimens. The centre's work has a high international reputation, in taxonomy, systematics, bioinformatics and conservation biology.
While there has been some recent commentary on declining levels of funding for the Australian National Botanic Gardens, the gardens' annual budget has not decreased over the past six years, and in fact its share of the director of National Parks baseline revenue from government increased slightly last year to just over 21 per cent.
Admittedly this is in the face of escalating costs, which in the case of water supply, in particular, have increased dramatically over the past few years. This has led to the Rudd Government's election commitment of an additional $1.5 million to develop an alternative water supply for the gardens.
Together with an allocation of a further $1.4 million from our capital fund, construction on this new project should commence within a couple of months. The legislative and policy hurdles have been considerable, but the gardens' senior management have progressively and persistently worked their way through these with the ACT Government, ACTEW, the National Capital Authority, and our water group colleagues in the federal Environment Department.
With $4 million invested in 2003-04 to construct a terrific new nursery at a new site in the gardens, the old nursery site, which I admit remains an eyesore, will be remediated for the gardens' 40th birthday next year. Claims that the hailstorm damage to the new nursery in 2007 has not been repaired are incorrect it was fixed a year ago.
A major new roll-out of interpretive signage in the coming months will provide a better visitor experience and directly respond to a 2007 survey that found that, while visitor satisfaction was in general very high, signage was a problem.
We're also looking at a variety of other options to further enhance the visitor experience at this magnificent site.
The opportunities for the gardens are huge. The needs are evident adapting to the impacts of climate change, understanding and protecting our rich biodiversity, and ensuring that our natural inheritance is preserved for future generations.
Reshaping the future of the gardens in this context is an exciting and challenging task. It is one that I look forward to sharing with the people of Canberra, the nation and visitors from around the world.
Peter Cochrane is the director of National Parks, a statutory authority that includes the management of the Australian National Botanic Gardens.
Email a friend