Precarious doomsday solution for New Zealand’s native plants

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As climate change crumbles coasts, lengthens droughts and increases extreme weather events, New Zealand’s seed bank for threatened indigenous plants lacks ongoing funding.

Here New Zealand’s few banked native species are surrounded by their sustainably-funded grassland counterparts.

He said the seed bank initially received funds from MWH, a private company. Massey University put some funds towards it and the New Zealand Lotteries Grant Board contributed three years of funding. Complicating matters is some seed species are too wet to be stored in the seed bank. Drying them destroys them and attempting to freeze them wet would cause the water inside to expand, exploding the cells. Cryopreservation is one option for these seeds, but not something the cash-strapped indigenous seed bank has access to. It’s estimated about around 20% of indigenous trees could fall into this category.She’s had an empty freezer waiting for seeds since 2013.

Stanley thinks a good solution doesn’t have to be hugely expensive, but does require security of ongoing funds.What’s an ideal solution? “You need to be thinking long term, you need to be looking after these species for decades. What happens in three years when the funding runs out? ‘We’ll just turn the freezers off, sorry guys.’ We need long term investment in these things.”

 

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