Exploring the Impact of Royal Botanical Garden Edinburgh's Living and Preserved Collections on Climate and Biodiversity Outcomes in the 21st Century

自1670年以来，爱丁堡皇家植物园（RBGE）一直致力于在全球范围内保护自然世界，该组织现在管理着一个收藏，包括图书馆，档案馆和苏格兰国家植物和植物标本馆标本的收藏。今天，植物园在日益增长的气候和生物多样性危机中的作用，以及关于保护和收藏的非殖民化的辩论，需要更多的批判性思考。该学生将通过研究最近的RBGE（2017-2025）活动来研究这些问题，并与尼泊尔、坦桑尼亚和苏格兰这三个国家的社区和政策制定者合作。RBGE与尼泊尔的联系可以追溯到19世纪，并一直延续到今天的尼泊尔植物项目，这是一个与包括尼泊尔政府植物资源部门在内的合作伙伴的国际合作项目。RBGE与坦桑尼亚的联系是最近的，但同样重要，包括若干研究和社区项目，着眼于森林管理和伐木的模式和驱动因素。与尼泊尔和坦桑尼亚的社区合作，并以RBGE的种族正义报告为基础，该学生将通过探索遗产组织在这些社区中通过政策和地方层面的决策产生的影响，为非殖民化辩论做出贡献。这将与苏格兰的一项比较研究相匹配，该研究是关于植物收集及其与非专业受众的交流如何对应对气候和生物多样性危机产生影响。这项研究旨在为更广泛的文化遗产界提供有关收藏、策展和交流的信息和指导，以影响未来的影响。

Since 1670, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) has worked globally to protect the natural world, and the organisation now curates a collection which includes libraries, archives, and Scotland's national collections of plants and herbarium specimens. Today, the role of botanic gardens in relation to the growing climate and biodiversity crises, alongside debates on the decolonisation of conservation and collections, require much critical thinking. The studentship will examine these questions by studying recent RBGE (2017-2025) activities, working with communities and policymakers in three countries: Nepal, Tanzania, and Scotland. RBGE's association with Nepal traces back to the 19th century, and continues today with the Flora of Nepal project, an international collaboration with partners including the Nepali Government's Department of Plant Resources. RBGE's connection with Tanzania is more recent, but no less significant, comprising a number of research and community-based projects looking at the patterns and drivers of forest management and logging. Working with communities in Nepal and Tanzania and building on RBGE's Racial Justice Report, the studentship will contribute to the decolonisation debates by exploring the impact heritage organisations are having in these communities both through policy and local-level decision making. This will be matched with a comparative study in Scotland, about how botanical collections and their communication to non-specialist audiences has an impact on tackling the climate and biodiversity crisis. The research aims to provide information and guidance to the wider cultural heritage community regarding the collection, curation, and communication of collections for future impact.