Peter H. Raven - US grants

The XVI International Botanical Congress (16th IBC) is held under the auspices of the International Union of Biological Sciences, and meets every 5-6 years, most recently (1993) in Tokyo. The 16th IBC, the last this century, will meet in St. Louis, in August 1999, and is expected to host 5,000 or more plant scientists from around the world. Recent past congresses have been relatively inaccessible to persons of more modest means such as students and scientists from developing countries. The NSF grant will support travel costs for Congress attendees and participants from the two targeted groups, young U.S. scientists and scientists from developing countries. The goal is to make the 16th IBC an interdisciplinary conference that will provide unique opportunities for U.S. and foreign scientists to meet and initiate collaborations and partnerships across a broad spectrum of modern plant sciences.
A comprehensive program of symposia and other presentations has been developed, focusing on six broad themes: biological diversity (systematics and evolution); ecology, environment, and conservation; structure, development, and cellular biology; genetics and genomics; physiology and biochemistry; and plant biotechnology. Convenors and keynote speakers include leading scientists from around the world active in all of these areas of research and education. Special efforts have been made to involve Canadian and Mexican scientists in the overall organization of the congress, and foreign scientists participate with U.S. counterparts in the organization of nearly every keynote symposium. The organizers have established a website to help disseminate information about the Congress and to encourage as great participation as possible (www.ibc99.org).

0133065
Raven
Invasive plants are a major economic problem and are a serious threat to the protection of biodiversity in natural areas. Efforts to reduce the number of invaders must focus not only on controlling existing species but also on identifying pathways of introduction to reduce establishment. Many of these non-native species were introduced accidentally, but the majority were introduced for horticultural use. Introductions for horticulture use continue at a high rate, and species already here that demonstrate invasive ability are rarely removed from use. The workshop will bring together government, private, and academic interests in ecology and horticulture to address several relevant issues. The invited participants will: 1) develop specific codes of conduct for interest areas within horticulture, including nurseries, botanical gardens, landscape architects, and the gardening public; 2) assess and refine explicit easy-to-use methods and guidelines for evaluating plant species for potential to become invasive pests; and 3) develop and assess methods to determine acceptable alternatives to many invasive species currently used in the United States for horticulture. It is intended that the discussions will search for concrete solutions acceptable to all parties and that, from the discussions, research and action agendas will be identified. The results of the workshop will be presented to the commercial horticulture and botanical garden communities, as well as to the Weed Science Society of America, for discussion, refinement and adoption.

Abstract
0515645
Title: Global Strategies for Restoring Natural Capital: A Symposium
PIs: Peter Raven (Missouri Botanical Garden), James Aronson (CEFE/CNRS, Montpellier,
France), James Blignaut (University of Pretoria, South Africa)

Over the past three decades, ecological restoration has emerged as a widely popular, transcultural initiative that fosters the recovery of ecosystems that have been degraded, damaged, or destroyed. Ecological restoration thus represents a practical way to replenish or augment current stocks of natural capital and flows of ecosystem goods and services, while also providing direct benefit for human wellbeing in the form of job creation and various immaterial benefits (e.g., social, cultural, and spiritual). Until now, many economists have taken cognizance of ecological engineering but not of ecological restoration, whose goal is to recover autogenic (self-sustaining) systems requiring few management and maintenance inputs. Moreover, despite their obvious complementarities, there has been little interaction-let alone cross-fertilization-between economics and restoration ecology to date. This grant will support an international Symposium that will bring together a large portion of the people who have considered these issues, from a range of different intellectual and cultural perspectives. The goal is to develop a clear rationale a) for doing restoration ecology on the conceptual basis of natural capital, and b) for actual investments of financial and human capital in the hands-on replenishment of natural capital, in ever-closer concert with rational ecosystem management and nature conservation. The symposium will 1) identify gaps in knowledge, 2) find new ways of approaching controversial issues, and 3) define priorities for future research: i.e., seek insight rather than consensus. The envisaged outcome is to catalyze a quantum leap in our understanding of the emerging "post-normal" fields of ecological economics and sustainability science that will be collated into a book-a sequel to an earlier book based on a workshop held in 2004 in South Africa to discuss the economics of ecological restoration in developing countries of the South. A Symposium website will be partially open to the public prior to the Symposium and entirely open thereafter. At least one third of Symposium participants will be women, and six graduate students, four from the U.S. and two from Australia, will participate. The Symposium will promote networking and development of collaborative strategies and policies in countries of the North, the South, and internationally.