AUSTIN, Texas, March 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The American Botanical Council (ABC) has introduced its inaugural ABC Steven Foster Botanical Conservation and Sustainability Award to the United Plant Savers (UpS), a nonprofit, grassroots plant conservation group. The award acknowledges excellence in conservation, sustainability, and regenerative farming efforts associated to medicinal and fragrant crops. It’s named in honor of botanist, creator, and photographer Steven Foster, who died on January 15, 2022, and commemorates his skilled curiosity, writing, and advocacy work on this subject.
Annually, the ABC Foster Award will acknowledge a person, nonprofit group, or industrial herb firm that’s dedicated to sustainable and regenerative practices within the botanical business or wider group in the USA or internationally. Recipients shall be taking motion to deal with botanical sustainability points and contributing to a broader understanding of cultural and organic range, soil well being, local weather change, financial justice, and extra. They can even show appreciation for the great thing about the pure world.
Foster had greater than 40 years of expertise with sustainability and conservation on the earth of herbs and medicinal crops. He served on ABC’s Board of Trustees for greater than twenty years, was a key advisor and content material contributor for ABC’s Sustainable Herbs Program (SHP), advocated for business commerce resolutions to guard threatened botanicals, and was a founding member of the UpS advisory board.
UpS was based in 1994. Its mission is “to guard native medicinal crops, fungi, and their habitats whereas making certain renewable populations to be used by generations to return,” based on the UpS web site. The group owns a 379-acre botanical and wildlife sanctuary in Rutland, Ohio, within the northern foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The sanctuary is house to lots of of plant species, lots of that are native Appalachian crops, together with a big inhabitants of goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis).
In 2019, throughout UpS’ twenty fifth anniversary, the group opened its Heart for Medicinal Plant Conservation. This facility, on the entrance of the sanctuary, is open to the general public and devoted to famend ethnobotanist and ABC co-founder James “Jim” Duke, PhD, and his spouse, Peggy, a botanical artist. The constructing features a classroom for the group’s vast number of instructional packages, a industrial kitchen to be used as a educating apothecary, a library of books about medicinal crops, a museum, an herbarium cupboard, and extra. The venue is supposed to have interaction and educate the group and function a mannequin to hopefully encourage different botanical sanctuaries to determine related facilities that commemorate and assist preserve the medicinal plant range of their respective areas.
UpS’ sanctuary is the middle of its Botanical Sanctuary Community, through which UpS members designate non-public land for use for the conservation of medicinal and different crops. This community consists of sanctuaries all through the USA and Canada. UpS gives sure advantages for members of the community. The group’s Medicinal Plant Conservation Certificates Program, through which college students study medicinal plant identification, tips on how to sustainably harvest and put together the crops to be used, and extra, has attracted individuals from around the globe. UpS additionally publishes an annual journal, Journal of Medicinal Plant Conservation, and different instructional content material. Its Species At-Threat Listing tracks native species it considers to be threatened or in any other case in danger. The group additionally hosts occasions and workshops, affords grants and awards, and extra.
“It’s such a particular and becoming honor for UpS to be chosen as the primary recipient of the ABC Steven Foster Award,” Rosemary Gladstar, famous herbalist, creator, and founding father of UpS, wrote (electronic mail, March 19, 2022). “I do know Steven can be happy. He was an avid supporter of UpS and served on the UpS Board of Administrators from 2000 to 2003. Steven introduced his many expertise and abilities, and likewise his wit and great humorousness, to the board conferences. I keep in mind considering how rather more enjoyable, and productive, these lengthy board conferences had been when Steven was current.
“Steven was extremely beneficiant in sharing his many expertise and abilities with UpS,” Gladstar added. “He not solely contributed his time and experience to the board conferences, but in addition taught at a number of UpS occasions and conferences. He was a contributing creator of the UpS e book Planting the Future: Saving Our Medicinal Herbs [Inner Traditions, 2000], wrote a number of articles for the Journal of Medicinal Plant Conservation, and contributed lots of his stunning plant pictures for UpS’ At-Threat and To-Watch lists. These are lasting items to UpS.
“His crowning contribution, nevertheless, was at UpS’ twenty fifth Anniversary Celebration and grand opening of its Heart for Medicinal Plant Conservation,” Gladstar continued. “Steven, who was a detailed good friend of the Dukes, gave a shocking keynote presentation that highlighted the life and work of [Jim and Peggy]. It appears a becoming legacy that we at the moment are honoring Steven Foster for his quite a few contributions to herbalism, his long-term love affair with the crops, his work with UpS and different plant conservation organizations, and the various items he shared with the natural group over the previous a number of many years.”
Susan Leopold, PhD, the manager director of UpS, additionally expressed gratitude for the award. “We’re honored to be the recipient of the inaugural ABC Steven Foster Botanical Conservation and Sustainability Award,” Leopold wrote (electronic mail, March 11, 2022). “An enormous because of our members, Board of Administrators, and workers for his or her dedication to the crops. We couldn’t do what we do with out them.
“Steven leaves a legacy for us all to hold on, as we advocate for the wonder and knowledge medicinal herbs present,” Leopold added. “Steven was extremely supportive of UpS’ most up-to-date challenge: the Duke Ethnobotanical Archives. Jim and Steven had been each mentors to so many. The conservation and sustainability of medicinal herbs rely upon the continued mentorship of the following technology. ABC’s Steven Foster Award will elevate the work of those that keep it up his spirit of mentorship, analysis, and advocacy.”
“Whereas there are various organizations, firms, and people which are doing wonderful work within the areas of medicinal and fragrant plant conservation, sustainability improvement, and regenerative farming, in the USA and internationally, it was clear to all of us concerned with the inaugural ABC Steven Foster award that Steven would have wished us to acknowledge UpS for its laudable mission and very important work,” mentioned Mark Blumenthal, ABC founder and govt director, and a detailed private good friend and colleague of Foster’s. “UpS is absolutely deserving of this recognition and is the plain group to obtain it.”
The primary annual ABC Steven Foster Botanical Conservation and Sustainability Award was introduced to Susan Leopold by Ann Armbrecht, PhD, Director of the ABC Sustainable Herbs Program, on the seventeenth Annual ABC Celebration and Botanical Excellence Awards Ceremony on March 9, 2022, in Anaheim, California, as a part of Pure Merchandise Expo West. That is the seventh award created by ABC to acknowledge excellent work within the medicinal and fragrant plant communities.
The ABC awards course of and ceremony had been underwritten by these ABC Sponsor Members in the USA and worldwide botanical business: Alkemist Labs, Amin Talati Wasserman LLP, Utilized Meals Sciences, Brassica Safety Merchandise, ChromaDex, Euromed, EuroPharma, Herbalife, Horphag Analysis, Indena USA, Informa, MegaFood, Pure Components, New Chapter, NOW Meals, PlusPharma Inc., RFI, RT Specialty, United Pure Merchandise Alliance, and Verdure Sciences.
About the American Botanical Council
