20180503_R4

Source: BBC Radio 4: Today

URL: N/A

Date: 03/05/2018

Event: Attenborough: Kew Gardens can help prevent "plantless desert" caused by climate change

Credit: BBC Radio 4

People:

• Sir David Attenborough: British broadcaster and naturalist

[This segment was part of a longer interview of Sir David Attenborough by the Today programme at Kew Gardens.]

Sir David Attenborough: The climate is changing so that areas where plants once grew they can't grow any more, either because humanity has taken over the land or indeed the climate has changed and there's nowhere else for them to go. Except they can be kept here, and are, and one of the things that Kew has done is to specialise in looking for those species of plants which can help land restore from difficult [?] - when its climate changes, you need particular plants that will be able to colonise that land, that don't necessarily grow there at the moment. So instead of becoming a plantless desert, you can plant it with particular kinds of plants that will tolerate the new conditions. And the seed bank, which of course, is also part of Kew, and of huge importance - it's able to help to provide that sort of help.