Seeds of hope: how the seed conservation project is supporting future regeneration

Restoring ecosystems and communities one seed at a time

Kangaroo Island Rare Plant Garden

The team behind the project believes that by investing in people, we can secure meaningful conservation outcomes. The Kangaroo Island Rare Plant Garden (KIRPG) will play a crucial role in the prevention of plant extinction.

The flora of Kangaroo Island was severely impacted by the 2019/20 bushfires and a flood the following summer. Rare and endemic plants that are found nowhere else in the world were threatened with extinction. The Kangaroo Island Rare Plant Garden (KIRPG) was conceived by the community and the SA Seed Conservation Centre in response to these disasters.

‘Out of sight, out of mind’ has been a persistent challenge to threatened flora conservation on the island. Many threatened plant species only occur in remote, inaccessible locations or as a handful of plants on a roadside. By bringing threatened plants and the community together in a central location, and also addressing gaps in knowledge, skills and plant availability, we can build the capacity of the community to be custodians for Kangaroo Island's threatened flora. This community-centric approach provides a roadmap and model for local community to initiate, coordinate and implement environmental recovery on their terms.

The garden itself is a living seed bank, where seeds can be grown, collected, stored, and used for restoration projects on the Island. Sourcing quality, sustainably sourced seed from cultivated plants is preferable to repeated, unsustainable harvesting from precious, dwindling wild sources.

It also has a deliberate garden aesthetic. It is a place for people to connect, heal and learn. It has been landscaped with different soils and water features to represent the varied habitats of the island.

The vision is to provide a unique experience for nature-based tourism, schools and community groups.

This vision will take time to realise as the garden is still a work in progress and is not presently open to the public.

The KIRPG is a partnership between the KI community, the SA Seed Conservation Centre, BioR and the Nature Conservation Society of SA.

SeaLink proudly supports this project. For more information on the project and how you can contribute, visit BioR website or watch the video on YouTube.

About the SA Seed Conservation Centre

One in four native plant species in South Australia are threatened with extinction. In 2002, the South Australian Seed Conservation Centre (SASCC) was established to join the Global Millennium Seed Bank Partnership. This partnership is world’s largest plant conservation project. It operates in more than 100 countries and is an insurance policy against plant extinction by banking seeds for future use.

The SASCC works to protect the state’s threatened plant species from extinction, while supporting the restoration of habitats.

So far, more than half a billion seeds from more than 2,500 species have been deposited in South Australia’s seed bank for long-term storage. As plant populations decline and the frequency of natural disasters increases, the value of these seed collections to aid species recovery only grows.