(Seychelles News Agency) - An agreement with a botanical garden in Germany will lead to exchanges with scientists, experts and technical personnel.

The agreement was signed by the chief executive of Seychelles National Botanical Gardens Foundation, Raymond Brioche, and the Lord Mayor of Dortmund, Ullrich Sierau, in September.

The Seychelles National Botanical Gardens and the Botanical Garden Rombergpark will receive support from each other in the fields of horticulture, ecology, education, biodiversity conservation and research.

Joint training programmes will be organised for staff and the public in these fields.

“The problem that we face here in Seychelles is a lack of human capacity. The agreement will help us greatly to develop our capacity, in terms of training and expertise,” said Brioche.

Brioche added that “Germany is far ahead when it comes to ex-situ conservation.”

Ex-situ conservation is a practice of conserving and maintaining of samples of living organisms outside their natural habitat, in the form of whole plants, seed, pollen, vegetative propagules, tissue or cell cultures.

This form of conservation measure can be complementary to in-situ methods -- the conservation of species in their natural habitats -- as they provide an "insurance policy" against extinction. Ex-situ has a valuable role to play in recovery programmes for endangered species.

The National Biodiversity Centre located at Barbarons in the west of Mahe, the main island, managed by the foundation currently practices ex-situ conservation with the islands’ rarest endemic plants.

Visitors at the Biodiversity Centre at Barbarons can get an interactive guided tour. (Louis Toussaint) Photo License: CC-BY

The agreement is a platform in which legal exchange of plant species, seed, seedlings and publication will be made.  Cooperation in research programs for mutual benefit is also part of the agreement.

“When we signed the agreement, we realised that it will be much larger than what we initially thought and will involve mostly all the botanical gardens in Germany,” said Brioche.

He elaborated that there are around 100 botanical gardens in Germany and that each garden has a collaboration with a university. Brioche said that this will facilitate the training of staff.

Managed by the National Botanical Gardens Foundation since December 2009, the Seychelles National Botanical Gardens is located at Mont Fleuri, on the outskirts of Victoria, the capital.

Established in 1901 by a Mauritian agronomist, Rivalz Dupont, the 15-acre garden is one of the Seychelles’ oldest national monuments and is a living green heritage providing a quiet, green getaway with a 20-minutes-walk from the busy town centre. The garden has developed into one of Victoria’s main tourist attractions.

The Memorandum of Understanding will remain in force for five years and may be extended.

Similar agreements exist between the National Botanical Gardens Foundation which manages Seychelles botanical garden and the National Biodiversity Centre with other countries such as in England, Thailand and South Korea.