IUCN Commission Statement on the role of botanic gardens, aquariums, and zoos in species conservation
The purpose of the IUCN SSC Position Statement on the role of Botanic Gardens, Zoos and Aquariums is threefold:
- to outline SSC’s position on the roles played by these institutions in the conservation of species and their genetic diversity,
- to urge all these institutions to achieve their potential in ensuring that animals, fungi and plants thrive in the wild, and
- to encourage the global species conservation community to work in a collaborative and integrated fashion towards reversing biodiversity declines.
This document is the result of a deeply collaborative, iterative, distributed public consultation overseen by Kris Vehrs, Kira Mileham, Mayerlin Ramos and Jon Paul Rodríguez. Working groups of experts from across the species conservation sector contributed to the drafting of the document. The SSC leadership and Steering Committee refined the draft before opening it for public comment. This public consultation resulted in over 4,000 comments from more than 350 individuals. Feedback was considered and all requests for changes were individually responded to. This feedback and the team's responses are available upon request to [email protected].