Turkey's first national botanical garden to open in Ankara

HDN | 6/9/2010 12:00:00 AM | ANKARA – Anatolia News Agency

Turkey's first internationally accredited botanical gardens will be established on the Atatürk Forest Farm in Ankara.

The gardens will occupy 2,000 hectares of land and will be operated and directed by the farm itself. The location will further include picnic areas and social facilities, while also supporting ecological research and development studies, Anatolian news agency reported Wednesday.

Plans for the National Botanical Garden project, which will cost 150 million Turkish Liras, were recently presented to the State Planning Organization. The project will be internationally accredited and is anticipated to become a tourist destination.

Local plants and plants and vegetation from other parts of the world will be grown in the botanical gardens by using different greenhouse and ecological techniques. At the same time, animals native to the various climates in the gardens will also live there.

The gardens will be located on the Ankara-Eskişehir road and are to be completed within five to six years.

The Çukurova University Botanical Garden, Turkey

Prof. Dr. Erdogan Gültekin

The first attempt to set up a botanic garden in Turkey was in about 1949 with the establishment of an Arboretum in Bahçeköy near Istanbul with the support of the University of Istanbul Faculty of Forestry. In spite of the rich biodiversity and high number of species both in flora and fauna in Turkey, the number of botanical gardens are quite few.

Early initiatives for a botanical garden at Çukurova University took place in 1972. . Some activities such as corresponding with some foreign countries were carried out by the Department of Landscape Architecture between 1973-1978. After collecting a variety of plant seeds from different countries and also from the mainland, some successful results were obtained with some outdoor plants such as Bauhinia variegata, Parkinsonia aculeata, Duranta repens and Cassia tomentosa which gave impetus for the development of a botanic garden.

In 1994 an evaluation and advisory committee with 12 members was formed to develop new strategies and policies which met twice a year. At the same time a planning and project team with 6 members mainly from the Department of Landscape Architecture was organized and a Master Plan was drawn in accordance with natural, edaphic and climatic conditions and the needs and interest of the public.

Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens Temperate House from the Pagoda
Type	Botanical
Location	London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England
Area	121 hectares (300 acres)
Opened	1759
Visitors	more than 1.35 million per year
Species	> 30,000
Website	www.kew.org
UNESCO World Heritage Site Kew Gardens
Name as inscribed on the World Heritage List
Type	Cultural
Criteria	ii, iii, iv
Reference	1084
UNESCO region	Europe and North America
Inscription history
Inscription	2003 (27th Session)

Kew Gardens is a botanical garden in south-west London and houses the largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world.^[1] Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, UK, its living collections include more than 30,000 different kinds of plants, while the herbarium, which is one of the largest in the world, has over seven million preserved plant specimens. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. It is one of London's top tourist attractions. In 2003, the gardens were put on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.

Kew Gardens, together with the botanic gardens at Wakehurst Place in Sussex, are managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (brand name Kew), an internationally important botanical research and education institution that employs 750 staff, and is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.^[2]

The Kew site, which has been dated as formally starting in 1759,^[3] though can be traced back to the exotic garden at Kew Park, formed by Lord Capel John of Tewkesbury, consists of 121 hectares (300 acres)^[4] of gardens and botanical glasshouses, four Grade I listed buildings and 36 Grade II listed structures, all set in an internationally significant landscape.^[5]

Kew Gardens has its own police force, Kew Constabulary, which has been in operation since 1847.

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a world famous centre for botanical and mycological knowledge. With our two inspiring gardens at Kew in London and Wakehurst in Sussex, we enchant our visitors with the wonder of plant diversity.

Over the past 250 years Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew has made innumerable contributions to increasing the understanding of plants and fungi with many benefits for humankind.

We want a world where plants and fungi are understood, valued and conserved – because our lives depend on them. We use the power of our science and the rich diversity of our gardens and collections to provide knowledge, inspiration and understanding of why plants and fungi matter to everyone.