The challenge for botanic garden science

5 | A CALL FOR ACTION!
It is time for botanic gardens to develop a new contract with soci‐
ety—a contract that delivers outcomes for society that only botanic 
gardens, as custodians of the world’s plant diversity, can deliver 
(Blackmore, 2017; Krishnan & Novy, 2016). In particular, we need 
to mount a fundamental defense of plant diversity (Blackmore & 
Oldfield, 2017), systematically preventing plant species extinctions 
with all of the tools, knowledge, and skills at our disposal. In addition, 
we need to do this right now.
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How to cite this article: Smith P. The challenge for botanic 
garden science. Plants, People, Planet, 2019;1:38–43. 
https://
doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10