Boston Flora

Tag: Biodiversity

  • Massachusetts Biodiversity Conservation Goals for 2050

    In 2023, Governor Maura Healey issued Executive Order No. 618, which called for Massachusetts to set nation-leading biodiversity conservation goals, including for coastal and marine environments, for 2030, 2040, and 2050. To meet this charge, the Massachusetts Department of Fish & Game, alongside many partners, developed this ambitious 25-year plan to rebuild biodiversity and invest in nature to sustain our health and well-being, food security, economy, and way of life.

    Massachusetts is home to an extraordinary abundance and variety of life. This is biodiversity—all the species, habitats, and complex interactions that make up the astonishing web of life. It isn’t just found in distant, wild places—it’s all around us, even right in our backyards. Biodiversity is the foundation for life—it anchors our history, heritage, and culture, supports our health and well-being, food security and economy, and enriches our lives. It is also key climate solution—nature protects our communities from extreme weather, drought, floods, and heat. To read about the multi-faceted approach, visit https://www.mass.gov/info-details/biodiversity-goals-for-massachusetts

  • Friday, March 28, 6:30 pm – Designing Biodiversity Through Pollinator-Plant Interactions

    Join in a free conversation on March 28 at 6:30 at Clark University’s Jefferson Hall (Room 218) on Designing Biodiversity through Pollinator-Plant Interactions, applied science at the landscape sale, a collaboration between Worcester Native Plant Initiative, Clark University and City of Worcester Department of Sustainability and Resilience. We welcome Evan Abramson of Landscape Interactions @landscapeinteractions. Register through Eventbrite HERE

  • Wednesday, January 18, 12:00 noon Eastern – Pollinator Conservation in Working Landscapes with Nick Haddad, Online

    Strategic conservation in farmed and urban landscapes can disproportionately increase biodiversity. Nick Haddad has worked for three decades to understand how to conserve landscapes to benefit pollinators and other species. He has created large experiments to test the role of targeted conservation efforts. For example, landscape corridors through urban and farmed landscapes can create superhighways for plants and animals to increase their presence, abundance, and diversity. Read more about the Ecological Landscape Alliance webinar on January 18 and register HERE.

  • Tuesdays, September 10, September 27, and October 4, 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm – Cultivating Your Plant Communities, Online

    Your backyard has a unique plant community based on the ecology and geology of the area.

    In this three-part Native Plant Trust workshop to be held online, learn to identify appropriate native plants and groupings for your site and create a personalized plant palette and design that is beautiful and enhances biodiversity. Leave the workshop inspired to integrate science and art in your garden. Tickets: $135 Members  –  $162 Non-Members. Sessions will be held from 6-9 on September 10, 27m and October 4. Staci Jasin, Landscape Designer, will instruct.

    All ticketing done through Native Plant Trust.


  • Wednesday, November 14, 10:00 am – Phenology and Biodiversity Research at Mount Auburn Cemetery

    Wednesday, November 14, 10:00 am – Phenology and Biodiversity Research at Mount Auburn Cemetery

    Brooks Mathewson, MFS, and ecologist, educator, and photographer, and Paul Kwiatkowski, Conservation and Sustainability Manager at Mount Auburn Cemetery, will each speak to the Garden Club of the Back Bay about ongoing studies at Mount Auburn Cemetery, at our November meeting on November 14 at 10 am at The College Club of Boston, 44 Commonwealth Avenue.  Mr. Mathewson will discuss Phenology, a branch of science dealing with the relation between climate and biological phenomena, such as bird migration and plant flowering. Mr. Kwiatkowski will give an overview of the Citizen Science Project and biodiversity research taking place at Mount Auburn Cemetery.  Club members will receive separate notification of this meeting, which will be followed by an optional lunch. If you are not a member of the Garden Club and wish to attend, please email info@bostonflora.com.  Photo by Brooks Mathewson.

    Image result for Brooks Mathewson

  • Thursday, October 4, 6:00 pm – Conserving Biodiversity: A Global Priority

    Biodiversity is the sum total of life on Earth and a living legacy to future generations. Sadly, it is declining almost everywhere on the planet. Russell A. Mittermeier, Chief Conservation Officer, Global Wildlife Conservation, Chair, Primate Specialist Group, Species Survival Commission of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and recipient of the 2018 Indianapolis Prize, is a biologist and lifelong conservationist who has traveled across 169 countries and discovered more than 20 species in his quest to save biodiversity hot spots. Focusing on nonhuman primates—our closest living relatives—Mittermeier will examine strategies for setting conservation priorities, highlight successful initiatives from around the world, and demonstrate why biodiversity is so critical to human survival.

    The Harvard Museum of Natural History Lecture will take place October 4 at 6 pm in the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street in Cambridge.. Free and open to the public.

    Free event parking available at 52 Oxford Street Garage. Presented by Harvard Museum of Natural History and Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology in collaboration with the Indianapolis Prize. For more information visit www.hmnh.harvard.edu.

    Conserving Biodiversity lecture image of speaker Russell A. Mittermeier

  • Wednesday, April 6, 7:00 pm – Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love

    Sample a locally produced beer — all the ingredients are made here in Massachusetts — and a collection of chocolate varieties at an event that celebrates both localism and biodiversity. This Porter Square Books sponsored event takes place Wednesday, April 6 beginning at 7 pm at Aeronaut Brewery, 14 Tyler Street in Somerville. The free lecture will be followed by a book signing.

    Award-winning journalist Simran Sethi explores the history and cultural importance of our most beloved tastes, paying homage to the ingredients that give us daily pleasure, while providing a thoughtful wake-up call to the homogenization that is threatening the diversity of our food supply.

    Food is one of the greatest pleasures of human life. Our response to sweet, salty, bitter, or sour is deeply personal, combining our individual biological characteristics, personal preferences, and emotional connections. Bread, Wine, Chocolate illuminates not only what it means to recognize the importance of the foods we love, but also what it means to lose them. Award-winning journalist Simran Sethi reveals how the foods we enjoy are endangered by genetic erosion a slow and steady loss of diversity in what we grow and eat. In America today, food often looks and tastes the same, whether at a San Francisco farmers market or at a Midwestern potluck. Shockingly, 95% of the world’s calories now come from only thirty species. Though supermarkets seem to be stocked with endless options, the differences between products are superficial, primarily in flavor and brand.

    Sethi draws on interviews with scientists, farmers, chefs, vintners, beer brewers, coffee roasters and others with firsthand knowledge of our food to reveal the multiple and interconnected reasons for this loss, and its consequences for our health, traditions, and culture. She travels to Ethiopian coffee forests, British yeast culture labs, and Ecuadoran cocoa plantations collecting fascinating stories that will inspire readers to eat more consciously and purposefully, better understand familiar and new foods, and learn what it takes to save the tastes that connect us with the world around us.

  • Monday, June 1, 3:00 pm – Annual Meeting of the Friends of Wellesley Botanic Gardens

    The Annual Meeting of the Friends of Wellesley Botanic Gardens will take place Monday, June 1, beginning at 3 pm with a reception, followed by a lecture at 4 entitled The (Under)story of Coffea arabica.  Botany Fellow Katie Goodall discusses how farmers support biodiversity and their own livelihoods by taking advantage of coffee’s capacity to be grown in the understory of managed forests.  Explore how consumers can voice solidarity with farmer-led sustainable production efforts.  The lecture is followed by Certificate of Botanical Art and Illustration Awards Ceremony.  Free, but please call 781-283-3094, or email wcbgfriends@wellesley.edu to let them know you will be attending.

  • Monday, March 23, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – China, Biodiversity, and the Global Environment

    China boasts not only the largest percentage of the world’s population (19%) but also one of the Earth’s richest, most diverse floras. Yet its economic rise as an industrial nation and its population density, with the associated environmental degradation, put this biodiversity at risk. Add in climate change and it is a recipe for disaster. Professor Peter Raven, a leading botanist, advocate for the conservation of biodiversity, and one of the co-editors of The Flora of China, a joint Chinese-American census of all the plants of China, is uniquely qualified to assess the consequences of over-population, industrial pollution, economic inequalities, and natural resource exploitation in China—consequences not limited to that country but affecting the entire global environment. In this Director’s Lecture Series talk on Monday, March 23, from 7 – 8:30 at the Arnold Arboretum, he will consider what it means for humanity to lose thousands of species to extinction, many before they are known or described by scientists. He’ll present his thoughts on reversing environmental degradation in China and around the globe and what is required to move all people toward an ethic of conservation and securing sustainability. Free, but registration required at http://my.arboretum.harvard.edu/Info.aspx?EventID=1.

  • Saturday, March 7, 9:30 am – 12:00 noon – Biodiversity in the Avian World

    Who would guess that parrots are closely related to songbirds, or that falcons are only distantly related to their look-alikes, hawks and eagles? How is it that hummingbirds have the rare ability (in the avian world) to detect sweet tastes? Explore the newly renovated Birds of the World gallery with Harvard doctoral students Allison Shultz and Maude Baldwin and consider the suite of adaptations that allows birds to live across the globe, even in the most extreme environments. Hear about the role of genomics in deciphering the bird family tree, the surprising relationships this has revealed, and the special abilities birds have evolved that help them exploit their environment. This Harvard Museum of Natural History adult education class will be held Saturday, March 7 from 9:30 – noon at the Museum, 26 Oxford Street in Cambridge. Fee: $35 Museum members/$40 nonmembers. Advance registration required. Register online at http://reservations.hmsc.harvard.edu/Info.aspx?EventID=11.