Global Work

The Atlanta Botanical Garden is actively invloved in Global Conservation.

The key to Atlanta Botanical Garden's Conservation Program is using low-cost restoration and recovery techniques, and to work directly with local and global landowners, relevant agencies, and botanical institutions and organizations.

The success of the program is based on the high level of horticultural and botanical expertise of its staff members, their dedication to each project and their ability to work on a variety of different levels - local, national or international.

Endangered Cycad
Biodiversity
Internships

Endangered Cycad

The Atlanta Botanical Garden has teamed with North Carolina conservationists in Uganda in an effort to preserve an endangered cycad. Conservatory Manager for the Atlanta Botanical Garden, Paul Blackmore, traveled with representatives of the North Carolina Zoo to the TOORO Botanic Garden in Uganda on the mission to preserve the endangered cycad.

Native only to Uganda, Encephalartos whitelockii is found on the western side of the country along the Mpanga River Fall. This evergreen grows on particularly rocky slopes with abundant grasses amongst sparse woodland, an environment where rapid and frequent fires destroy the plant’s long, spiny foliage and threaten its distribution. The biggest threat for E. whitelockii , however, is the eminent construction of a dam, which would flood the population residing along the Mpanga River Falls.

Botanical gardens around the world are working to save the germplasm of Encepahalrtos whitelockii, and Blackmore is working with the North Carolina Zoo to assess the damage to this plant. Meanwhile, populations of the cycad have been distributed throughout Uganda in conservation efforts.

Biodiversity

Amphibian Conservation Scientist for the Atlanta Botanical Garden, Danté Fenolio, recently returned from field work in China, Thailand, and Brasil, where he was working on a grant-funded biodiversity book that focuses on wildlife living in the dark, such as cave and deep-sea life.

He spent three weeks photographing Chinese, Thai, and Brasilian cave wildlife, especially blind cave fish. The work paid off as he and his Chinese collaborators discovered at least two new species of blind cave fish. The highlight of the trips was photographing the rare Waterfall Climbing Cave Loach, a pink, blind fish found only in several caves on the border of Burma and Thailand. This species of fish actually climbs out of the water and eats bacteria growing on wet rocks in caves.

Internships

The Atlanta Botanical Garden's International Intern Program was established to facilitate the exchange of ideas, expertise and plant collections between botanical gardens and institutes around the world.

As part of its ongoing collaboration with The Maquipucuna Foundation, the Garden also hosts interns from Ecuador who come here for three months to learn horticulture skills to take back home.