LU Yongxiang Inspects South China Botanical Garden

Prof. LU Yongxiang, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), made a special inspection of South China Botanical Garden (SCBG) and gave an important speech on December 19, 2009.

Dr. HUANG Hongwen, director of SCBG presented a progress report on SCBG for the year 2009 in the symposium. The report contains: research progress and outputs, China's Strategy for Plant Conservation (in-situ and ex-situ), popular science and tourism development, capacity of research facilities and platform construction, and International cooperation and exchange.

He also showed SCBG's international strategic review for 2010-2020, talent introduction of "Thousands of Talents Plan" and 80th anniversary celebration, and highlighted the next work plans.

Photo by SCBG

Prof. LU gave high appraisal to SCBG's performances in facing national strategic requirements and global scientific and technological frontier, scientific and technological innovation, structural reform, talent cultivation, science propagation, infrastructure construction, innovation culture.

Prof. LU pointed out that the main works will focus on in the future: (1) extending the living collections and ex-situ conservation of important species (having high exploition and utilization value) in tropical and subtropical regions; (2) transferring works into research, selection and utilization of germplasm resources, and exploiting these resources for the development of economy and society; (3) conducting strategic review and designs for the future development, and combining it well with the development plan of CAS, Guangdong province, Guangzhou city and the national Twelfth Five-Year Plan.

Prof. LU visited the Conservatory-Greenhouses after the symposium, including tropical rainforest greenhouse, rare and endemic greenhouse, and plant aquarium. He praised the construction of the tropical greenhouse complex.

Dr. HUANG Hongwen and Dr. REN Hai, Mr. WEI Ping, and Dr. FU Shenglei, deputy directors of SCBG, the principal investigators of all research fields and other administrators warmly greeted Prof. LU and his visiting group.