Arnold Donald, chairman of the Missouri Botanical Garden Board of Trustees, has very good news for St. Louis: He says the Garden has hired the “No. 2” talent in the world in this field as its new president. The board could have done no better in its candidate search, Donald points out, because Dr. Peter Wyse Jackson is succeeding the No. 1 talent in the world in the field, Dr. Peter H. Raven.
Wyse Jackson, currently director of the National Botanic Gardens of Ireland in Dublin, will start work at the Garden on September 1. Raven will remain in St. Louis and serve the Garden as president emeritus.
“What is most unique is the role in this process Dr. Raven played. Peter is a global icon, and deservedly so. He built this institution to the point where the top people in the world in this space would salivate to be able to lead it, and that’s because of him, his legacy and what he has built here,” Donald told The American today (Wed., Feb. 10).
“And his being No. 1 in the world in this space, he knows everybody of any significance in it, so it was easy to solicit a list of the top candidates in the world and it was easy to attract those candidates to choose to come after this position.”
Donald, who served on the search committee even before he was elected board chair, said the search process took “many months” and involved board members, staff and “other major constituents,” including Washington University, where Raven holds a position.
“We would say he is the No. 2 in this space on the globe,” Donald said of Wyse Jackson. “He’s a global figure. He shares a passion for our core aspects here at the Garden.”
For Raven, those “core aspects” clearly are conservation and sustainability.
Raven told The American he has worked with Wyse Jackson “since the mid-‘80s” on international committees devoted to plant conservation, which evolved into Botanic Gardens Conservation International, which Wyse Jackson later headed.
“When he began there it was moribund, but he built it up to a substantial global force in plant conservation with thousands of members, and I chaired their international advisory committee,” Raven said of Wyse Jackson’s work with the conservation group.
Raven also praised Wyse Jackson for his work in organizing strategy sessions that resulted in international standards for conservation.
“Now all countries in the world have a strategy and a template under which to pursue plant conservation,” Raven said. “He heads the secretariat that develops that plan and guides it.”
Raven said that Wyse Jackson takes over leadership of the Garden and its international role in plant conservation and diversity at a direly critical time.
“We are trashing biological diversity at such a speed we have to go back 65 million years to when the dinosaurs disappeared to find a time when biological diversity was disappearing so rapidly,” Raven said.
“So the Garden’s role is really important in helping to build sustainability and conserve biological diversity, which is what everything we do is ultimately based on. All of our food and many of our medicines are based directly on biological diversity, as well as environmental functions like moderating the flow of water, absorbing toxins and preserving topsoil.”
Raven emphasized, “Peter Wyse Jackson is very, very well suited to lead us in that phase, which is clearly going to grow more and more intensely damaging as the years go by, to which we have to respond with ever-increasing fervor.”
