THE SEEDHUNTERS

                                                               THE SEEDHUNTERS 

With Q uarter of the world's plants set to vanish within the next 50 years, Dough Alexander reports on the scientists working against the clock to preserve the Earth's botanical heritage.

 They travel th e fou r corn ers of th e globe, scou rin g ju n gles, forests an d savannas. But they're n ot lookin g for an cien t artefacts, lost treasure or undiscovered tombs. Just pods. It may lack the rom an tic allu re of archaeology, or the w hiff of danger that accompanies goin g after big game, bu t seed hu nting is an increasingly seriou s bu siness. Some seek seeds for profit — hunters in the em ploy of biotechnology firms, pharm aceutical companies an d private corporations on the lookou t for species th at w ill yield th e drugs or crops of th e future. Oth ers collect to conserve, w orkin g to h alt th e sad slide in to extin ction facin g so m an y plan t species. 

Among the pioneers of this botanical treasu re hunt w as JohnTradescant, an E nglish royal gardener w ho brought back plan ts andseeds from his journeys abroad in the early 1600s. Later, the English botanist Sir Joseph B anks — who was the first director of the RoyalBotanic G ardens at K ew and traveled w ith Captain James Cook on hisvoyages near the end of the 18th centu ry — was so driven to expand hiscollection s th at h e sen t botan ists arou n d th e w orld at h is ow n expense.

 Those heady days of exploration and discovery m ay be over, bu t they h ave been replaced by a pressin g n eed to preserve ou r n atu ral h istory for th e fu tu re. Th is modern mission drives hu nters su ch as D r Michiel van Slageren, a good-natured D utchm an w ho often sports a w ide-brimmed h at in th e field — he could easily be mistaken for th e cin ematic h ero Indiana Jones. H e and three other seed hu nters w ork at th e Millennium Seed B ank, an £80million in tern ation al con servation project th at aims to protect th e w orld's m ost endangered w ild plan t species.

 The group's headqu arters are in a modern glass-an d-con crete stru ctu re on a 200-hectare estate at Wakehurst Place in the West Sussex cou ntryside. Within its underground vaults are 260 million dried seeds from 122 countries, all stored at -20 C elsius to survive for cen tu ries. Am on g th e 5,100 species represen ted are virtu ally all of Brita in's 1,400 native seed-bearing plants, the most complete such collection of any country's flora. 

 Overseen by the Royal Botanic Gardens, the Millennium Seed Bank is the world's largest wild-plant depository. It aims to collect 24,000 species by 2010. The reason is simple: thanks to humanity's efforts, an estimated 25 per cent of the world's plants are on the verge of extinction and may vanish within 50 years. We're currently responsible for habitat destruction on an unprecedented scale, and during the past 400 years, plant species extinction rates have been about 70 times greater than those indicated by the geological record as being 'normal'. Experts predict that during the next 50 years a further one billion hectares of wilderness will be converted to farmland in developing countries alone. 

The implications of this loss are enormous. Besides providing staple food crops, plants are a source of many medicines and the principal supply of fuel and building materials in many parts of the world. They also protect soil and help regulate the climate. Yet, across the globe, plant species are being driven to extinction before their potential benefits are discovered. 

The World Conservation Union has listed 5,714 threatened plant species worldwide, but it admits this is only scratching the surface. With only four per cent of the world's described plants having been evaluated, the true num ber of threatened species is sure to be much higher In the UK alone, 300 wild plant species are classified as endangered. The Millennium Seed Bank aims to ensure that even if a plant becomes extinct in the wild, it won't be lost forever. Stored seeds can be used to help restore damaged or destroyed environments or in scientific research to find new benefits for society — in medicine, agriculture or local industry — that would otherwise be lost.

 Seed banks are an 'insurance policy' to protect the world's plant heritage for the future, explains Dr. Paul Smith, another Kew seed hunter. "Seed conservation techniques were originally developed by farmers," he says. "Storage is the basis of what we do, conserving seeds until you can use them — just as in farming." Smith says there's no reason why any plant species should become extinct, given today's technology. But he admits that the biggest challenge is finding, naming and categorising all the world's plants. And someone has to gather these seeds before it's too late. "There aren't a lot of people out there doing this," he says, "The key is to know the flora from a particular area, and that knowledge takes years to acquire. There are about 1,470 seed banks scattered around the globe, with a combined total of 5.4 million samples, of which perhaps two million are distinct non-duplicates. Most preserve genetic material for agricultural use in order to ensure crop diversity others aim to conserve wild species, although only 15 per cent of all banked plants are wild. 

Many seed banks are themselves under threat due to a lack of funds. Last year, Imperial College, London, examined crop collections from 151 countries and found that while the number of plant samples had increased in two thirds of the countries, budgets had been cut in a quarter and remained static in another 35 per cent. The UN' s Food and Agriculture Organisation and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research has since set up the Global Conservation Trust, which aims to raise US$260 million (£156 million) to protect seed banks in perpetuity