Botany 2000 is the name for a scientific program, organized under the auspices of

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

. While a similar UNESCO program, ASOMPS, focus on promotion of collaboration and co-operation between scientists in Asia, Botany 2000 is composed of activities in

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

. Activities in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

are confined to support of herbaria in countries in transition and reconstruction e.g.

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

. The Botany 2000 program was accepted by the UNESCO General Conference in 1989. Activities in Africa and Asia subsume activities in predecessor networks such as the: * Botany 2000-Asia * Botany 2000-Africa The Botany 2000-Asia program is the new name for the former ''Southeast Asian Cooperative Program on Descriptive Botany'' (SEABOP) and of the work being carried out by the majority of the other organizations involved in the ''Asian Coordinating Group for Chemistry'' (ACGC). Botany 2000-Asia is implemented by UNESCO's New Delhi Office and focuses on the

taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

, and biological and cultural

diversity Diversity, diversify, or diverse may refer to: Business *Diversity (business), the inclusion of people of different identities (ethnicity, gender, age) in the workforce *Diversity marketing, marketing communication targeting diverse customers * ...

of medicinal and ornamental plants, and their protection against

environmental pollution ''Environmental Pollution'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering the biological, health, and ecological effects of environmental pollution. It was established in 1980 as two parts: ''Environmental Pollution Series A: Ecological and Biologi ...

, as well as ethnobiological classification and biological

systematics Systematics is the study of the diversification of living forms, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Relationships are visualized as evolutionary trees (synonyms: phylogenetic trees, phylogenies). Phy ...

and the correct documentation of useful plants through collection of voucher specimens. Within the framework of the project Botany 2000-Asia,

supports also the computerization of holdings and locations in herbaria throughout Asia. Under the Botany 2000-Asia program some conferences were held: * Botany 2000-Asia: Herbarium Curation Workshop (15-20 October 1990, Point Walter, Bicton, Western Australia) * Botany 2000-Asia: Zingiberaceae Workshop (15-18 October 1991, Hat Yai, Thailand) * Botany 2000-Asia: Rutaceae Workshop (2-7 February 1992, in conjunction with ASOMPS VII, Manila, Philippines) * Botany 2000-Asia: International Botanical Congress (28 August-3 September 1993, Tokyo, Japan) * Botany 2000-Asia: International Seminar and Workshop : taxonomy and phytochemistry of the Asclepiadaceae in tropical Asia (June 1994, Malacca, Malaysia) * Second Symposium on The Family Zingiberaceae (9-12 May 1995, Guangzhou, China) Proceedings were published as: Te-Lin Wu; Qi-Gen Wu; Z.-Y. Chen (Eds.) 1996. Proceedings of the Second Symposium on the Family Zingiberaceae. Publ. by Zhongshan University Press, Guangzhou - 510 275, People's Republic of China, v, 306 pp., ill., * Botany 2000-Asia: Workshop on the Family Apocynaceae (6-8 February 1996, Chittagong, Bangladesh) Neville Marchant, Director of the

Western Australian Herbarium The Western Australian Herbarium is the state Herbarium, situated in Perth, the capital of Western Australia. It houses a collection of more than 845,000 dried specimens of plants, algae, bryophytes (mosses, liverworts and hornworts), lichens, fu ...

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

, has been involved in the Botany 2000-Asia programme since its inception. The UNESCO Office, New Delhi also published the ''Botany 2000-Asia Newsletter'' four times a year. A typical issue contains news on workshops, training courses, databases, projects and forthcoming meetings as well as reports on unauthorized collection and export of medicinal plants from the region. The editor requests one to two page articles and reports of seminars and meetings of general relevance to

botany Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

and

ethnobotany Ethnobotany is an interdisciplinary field at the interface of natural and social sciences that studies the relationships between humans and plants. It focuses on traditional knowledge of how plants are used, managed, and perceived in human socie ...

in Asia. Apart from producing the newsletter, the UNESCO Botany 2000-Asia program sponsors occasional workshops on the

and

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

of various plant families, as well as training courses in herbarium techniques and curation. Botany 2000-Africa is implemented by UNESCO's Nairobi Office and deals with the conservation and use of the medicinal flora of Africa. Some of the activities of the Botany 2000-Africa program are published in: S. Edwards and Z. Asfaw (Editors): ''The Status of Some Plant Resources in Parts of Tropical Africa''. Botany 2000: East and Central Africa; NAPRECA Monograph Series No. 2. Published by ''Natural Products Research Network for Eastern and Central Africa'' (NAPRECA), Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, 1992. The UNESCO ''Botany 2000'' program is different from the annual meeting of the ''Botanical Society of America'' (BSA), who organised an annual scientific conference named ''Botany''. This ''Botany 2000 : New Frontiers in Botany'' conference was held in Portland, Oregon on 6-10 August 2000.

References

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External links

* UNESCO New Delhi Office: annual report, 1996

* Abstracts of some Botany 2000 seminars on Family Zingiberaceae

UNESCO International conferences Botany