In-Country Training Courses

In-country courses provide practical-based training for MSBP partners and other invited participants. Co-organised and delivered by Kew's Seed Conservation Department and partner institutes, more than 700 people have been trained through such courses since the start of the project.

Kirstenbosch training course July 2005.

The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) held two workshops on Seed Conservation Techniques in July 2005. The courses, held at the Kirstenbosch and Pretoria National Botanical Gardens, included two days of theory on seed collecting and handling techniques and one day collecting in the field. Carly Cowell, MSB-SA Cape Project Co-ordinator, Erich van Wyk, MSB-SA Project Manager and Kate Gold, Training Manager for the MSBP, facilitated the courses. In all, 22 SANBI horticultural staff, representing all nine SANBI National Botanical Gardens (NBGs), and five participants from partner organisations attended the workshops.

Training course in China October 2005.

To launch the MSBP China partnership's first seed collecting season, the Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB), home to the newly created Southwest China Germplasm Bank of Wild Species (SCGBWS), held a training course in October 2005. Twenty-four participants from KIB, including five newly recruited staff, participated in the training. The 3-day course focused mainly on seed collecting skills. Dr Paul Smith and Dr Kate Gold spent the first day in the classroom to introduce general protocols on seed conservation and collecting skills. Field trips to Guodong, a small village near Kunming city, and to Qiongzhu Si (bamboo temple) of Kunming, to practice collecting and post-harvest handling followed. The nine species collected during the training course were recorded as the first batch of collections accessioned by the SWCWSB.

Following on from this initial training, the five new SWCWSB staff spent 6 weeks at the MSB, gaining further hands-on experience.