Horsham is the most bio-diverse constituency: not only in this country but the world: sounds surprising but is absolutely true. The secret behind this impressive statistic lies in the Millennium Seed Bank.
Founded with the objective of holding the seeds of ten per cent of the world's plants by 2010 it reached that goal with conviction and now directly or indirectly is home to no less than 17 per cent. The Seed Bank is the focus of storage and research conducted by local volunteers and a professional team at the Royal Botanic Gardens' Wakehurst Place near Ardingly. As well as being a world-renowned centre of scientific excellence the gardens that surround the Seed Bank are magnificent and a major tourist attraction.
The year the Royal Botanic Gardens were founded in Kew (1759) was the "year of victories" in which Clive "won" India and Wolfe "won" Canada for the crown. Alongside the enlightenment ideas of learning for its own sake the Gardens focused for two hundred years on the horticultural challenges of Empire - Cotton, Tea, Coffee, Rubber. Nowadays the learning continues but we face new challenges. The potential impacts of climate change and deforestation need to be addressed - and Wakehurst focuses on the three E's: seeds that are endangered, endemic only to small areas of the world or economically important.
Perhaps what is most scarey about losing plant varieties is not knowing what we may be losing with them. It was a recent discovery of the properties of an obscure Madagascan plant that has transformed recovery rates for childhood leukaemia. We have no idea yet how critical the seed bank may be to future generations - we can all however be very proud of this repository of knowledge which not only fulfils an invaluable function for the UK and world community but in difficult times is increasingly managing to do so by standing commercially on its own two feet.