Guidelines and policy
Supporting education in botanic gardens is one of BGCI's key roles. We develop policies, guidelines and tools to support best practice in environmental education and education for sustainable development.
The education publications can be accessed:
- electronically (as PDFs) using the links below
- as PDFs on the BGCI CD Rom, 'Plants for the Planet: Resource pack for botanic gardens'
- hard copies can be ordered by contacting us
Click here to find out what members think of BGCI's education materials.
Botanic gardens have always been important centres for environmental education and in recent years there has been a growing interest in education for sustainable development (ESD) amongst botanic garden educators. As a holistic process, ESD attempts to represent the complex and dynamic relationships between the natural and social sciences thus providing a means of addressing the environmental and development issues of the 21st century.
BGCI has produced these guidelines to support botanic gardens in developing and implementing ESD strategies.
This document evolved out of a stated need by botanic gardens for direction in setting up and developing environmental education programmes. These guidelines contains a step by step approach and framework for botanic gardens to develop their programmes, including case studies and examples from gardens all over the world.
This excellent book, produced by the Southern African Botanical Diversity Network (SABONET), provides practical guidelines on how to develop an interpretation programme in a botanic garden. Topics covered include planning, interpretive signs, self-guided trails, visitor orientation and using themes.
The GSPC highlights the importance of plants and the ecosystem services they provide for all life on earth, and aims to ensure their conservation. It contains 16 targets through which the ultimate aim of halting the current and continuing loss of plant diversity can be achieved. Target 14 focuses educators on the inclusion of plants (their conservation, diversity and importance) in environmental education. Find out more about the GSPC and what botanic gardens around the world are doing to address Target 14 through their education programmes.