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Post date: Mar 11, 2011 8:34:54 PM
Roy Watling tells us about his appointment as a councillor for the newly formed International Society of Fungal Conservation
Despite the success of the International Mycological Congress held in Edinburgh last August, its programme of cutting edge science had no room for the more traditional approaches including, sadly, fungal conservation.
Thus in August an impromptu meeting of interested delegates to the Congress was called by David Minter and a small enthusiastic group met to discuss the role of fungi in conservation; a media release from the Royal Botanic Garden, which some you may have seen, appeared in some of the press. The fact that conservation of fungi never appeared on many national agendas spurred the assembled group to explore the possibilities of forming an international body to represent their aspirations.
In October 2010, the World’s attention was on the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan, - attended by many government representatives. The group felt it was important to submit a paper pointing out the important role of fungi, something that was considered to have been missed by the organisers. As a result, the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation now reads:
“While the Strategy addresses the plant kingdom with main focus on higher plants, and other well-described groups such as bryophytes and pteridophytes; Parties, other Governments and other relevant stakeholders may consider developing conservation strategies for other groups such as algae and fungi (including lichen-forming species).”
It is now possible to announce that the group is fully constituted as the International Society of Fungus Conservation, with officers chosen by ballot:
David Minter President
Lorelei Norvell Vice President
Marieka Gryzenhout Secretary
Jo Taylor Treasurer
Peter Buchanan Membership Secretary
Paul Cannon Editor
Maria Alice Neeves Communication Officer
Councillors:
Rafael Casaneda-Ruiz;
Staphanos Diamandis;
David Hawksworth
Maria Lawrynowicz
Roy Watling
Scottish Fungi will be up-dated as and when things develop. It might be noted that David Minter is an Hon. Associate at RBG Edinburgh where Roy has an Emeritus position and Jo Taylor is base at St Monens.
R Watling,
March 2011