CPC's 40th Anniversary Summit
In conjunction with the National Meeting, the Center for Plant Conservation (CPC) celebrated our organization’s milestone 40th anniversary at a special summit event, Conservation Innovation: Advancing Endangered Species Conservation, hosted in collaboration with the San Diego Natural History Museum. Blending celebration with purpose, this event commemorated the significant strides CPC and its network of Conservation Partners have made over the past 40 years to protect and conserve North America’s rare and endangered native flora.
CPC was honored to host distinguished scientists and conservationists from throughout its network of botanical organizations for a keynote presentation and panel discussion during the summit to share insights from their own research and initiatives.
Attendees had the unique opportunity to hear from keynote speaker Dr. Oliver Ryder, Director of Conservation Genetics at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, and a panel of leading experts in the field of plant conservation, including: Dr. Naomi Fraga, Director of Conservation Programs at California Botanic Gardens; Dr. Jon Rebman, Mary and Dallas Clark Endowed Chair/Curator of Botany at the San Diego Natural History Museum; and Kimberly Shay, Network Coordinator at Laukahi: The Hawai’i Plant Conservation Network.
The engaging panel discussion highlighted the critical urgency, challenges, and opportunities in our shared goal to species from extinction, with an overarching theme for success: innovation. By exploring and refining new technologies and methodologies—from biobanking genetic material to utilizing database and communication tools and citizen science apps—we can advance our work to save plants from extinction.
Another prevalent theme of the evening was collaboration. Working together and developing partnerships—with fellow conservation organizations, federal agencies, funders, citizen scientists, plant lovers, and more—we can amplify our efforts and save more plants than would ever be possible alone.
We were honored to be joined at this event by CPC’s co-founders, Dr. Frank Thibodeau and Dr. Don Falk, whose vision for an organization dedicated to rare plant conservation has flourished and grown into a network of 79 partner institutions dedicated to the preservation of rare and endangered plant species. We were also thrilled to be joined by many of our Conservation Partners from throughout the CPC network, former CPC staff members, members of CPC’s Board of Trustees, and many new friends who share our passion for nature and conservation.
We thank everyone who joined us for this wonderful evening to celebrate CPC’s 40th anniversary and the bright future we’re collectively creating for plants, people, and our planet.
CPC is grateful to our network of plant conservationists from 79 world-class botanical gardens, arboretums, and other plant-focused organizations that collaboratively work to save the 4,400 most rare and endangered plants of the United States, its territories, and Canada, throughout their native range.Â
