Black and white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata)

Mohamed bin Zayed Species project number 10251386

The Missouri Botanical Garden was founded in 1859 by Henry Shaw (1800-1889) to provide recreational and aesthetic benefits, and to contribute to expanding and applying knowledge about the natural world. To create a HTML link within the copy, hightlight the text, click the 'Insert / edit link ' button and complete the first field. (Tip - browse to the page / web site you want to link to and then copy the address field from your browser into the 'Link URL' field).. To create a HTML link within the copy, hightlight the text, click the 'Insert / edit link ' button and complete the first field. (Tip - browse to the page / web site you want to link to and then copy the address field from your browser into the 'Link URL' field).MBG's herbarium is now among the largest in the world, with over 5 million specimens, largely collected by staff and collaborators working around the world in priority regions for biodiversity exploration and conservation. To create a HTML link within the copy, hightlight the text, click the 'Insert / edit link ' button and complete the first field. (Tip - browse to the page / web site you want to link to and then copy the address field from your browser into the 'Link URL' field). The Missouri Botanical Garden has had an active program in Madagascar for three decades, focusing for most of this period on taxonomic research and in-country capacity building, with special emphasis on training. To create a HTML link within the copy, hightlight the text, click the 'Insert / edit link ' button and complete the first field. (Tip - browse to the page / web site you want to link to and then copy the address field from your browser into the 'Link URL' field). However, during the last five years, partly as a result of an increased awareness stimulated by several projects aimed at informed conservation (e.g., our “Red List for Species in Madagascar’s Endemic Plant Families” and “Inventory of Madagascar’s Littoral Forests” initiatives), the staff of the MBG Madagascar Program—in particular our Malagasy personnel—have become increasingly concerned that plant conservation efforts in Madagascar are very far from adequate. With this realization came a belief that MBG had an urgent obligation to help rectify this situation. The urgency of this challenge prompted the MBG program to conduct a series of strategic planning sessions in 2002, in which we identified four actions required to improve the conservation status of the Malagasy flora: 1) analysis of botanical information to assist in conservation planning and decision-making; 2) improved advocacy for the conservation of Malagasy plants; 3) species-focused conservation of plants on the very brink of extinction; and 4) catalysis of conservation at priority areas for plant conservation that we have identified as likely to be ignored by other conservation organizations because of their relatively small size and/or apparent rarity of prestigious animals (i.e., orphan sites). To create a HTML link within the copy, hightlight the text, click the 'Insert / edit link ' button and complete the first field. (Tip - browse to the page / web site you want to link to and then copy the address field from your browser into the 'Link URL' field). This workshop also developed, for the first time, a mission statement for our program: To discover, understand, and conserve the plants of Madagascar, in order to sustain and enrich life.