Member Article

Wildflowers – from Liverpool to China

Landlife, which founded the National Wildflower Centre in Court Hey Park, has set up a historic new conservation agreement in Kunming, South West China following the International Festival for Business.

The Liverpool-China partnership will create a new reciprocal wildflower seed industry and generate creative conservation projects in China.

This will allow a celebration of Chinese biodiversity and enable Chinese wildflowers to be used in ecological restoration to address problems of landscape degradation, and promote Chinese wildflowers as an important cultural asset for city landscaping projects.

The seeds of the project were sown when Professor Wang from Shanghai visited Liverpool in Capital of Culture year and told Landlife’s future Chinese partners about the National Wildflower Centre and its work.

Links with Kunming Botanic Institute developed after a visit from Jie Cai, then Kew Gardens’ China Programmes Officer, who came to speak to Liverpool’s Chinese community at the Pagoda Centre in 2007, sparking the connection to Kunming.

The Chinese Community in Liverpool is the oldest in Europe, and earlier this year Landlife helped representatives and local schoolchildren plant poppy seeds on the Tribeca land below the Anglican Cathedral with permission from Liverpool City Council and support from John Swire and Sons Ltd, a global company with Liverpool roots which has extensive Chinese business interest.

The poppies germinated in time for the second signing ceremony, with the bright red colour symbolising good fortune and joy in Chinese culture.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .