Alpine Strategy Resources

Learn more about projects, partners, on-going research, and news items about the Alpine Strategy

Our Partners

Betty Ford Alpine Gardens and Denver Botanic Gardens have entered a formal partnership to build a strong team to accomplish the Objectives in the Strategy. However we cannot do this alone and we welcome other Gardens or Environmental Organizations to become working partners in this effort.

Betty Ford Alpine Gardens | NAGB Alpine Strategy

Founded in 1985 by the Vail Alpine Garden Foundation and named in 1988 in honor of former first lady Betty Ford, an internationally acclaimed collection of alpine plants in the Rocky Mountains

With a mission to protect the alpine environment through education, conservation and living plant collections, the vision of the Betty Ford Alpine gardens is to be the leading global advocate for alpine environments.

Betty Ford Alpine Gardens is an internationally acclaimed botanic gardens known for its alpine horticulture, education and conservation. Located in the small resort town of Vail, Colorado which attracts a global audience for its skiing and outdoor recreation, Betty Ford Alpine Gardens is the highest elevation botanical garden in North America situated at 8,200’ (2,700 m) in the central Rocky Mountains. The Gardens attracts more than 120,000 visitors annually to see its unique collection of alpine and mountain plants collected from around the world.

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Denver Botanic Gardens features North America’s largest collection of plants from cold temperate climates around the world, as well as 7 diverse gardens that mostly include plants from Colorado and neighboring states.

The world’s first Xeriscape Demonstration Garden was created at the Gardens in 1986, and 2 years later its name was changed to Dryland Mesa. It was based on the “7 Principles” of Xeriscape, and includes drought-tolerant plants from the arid West and Mediterranean areas.

The Japanese Garden at the Denver Botanic Gardens
The Japanese Garden is called Shofu-en—the Garden of Wind and Pines. It was designed by Koichi Kawana in collaboration with Kai Kwahara.

The York Street location of the Botanic Gardens opened Denver’s 1st publicly accessible green roof.

The Denver Botanic Gardens also boasts the first conservatory in America that was made entirely of concrete and Plexiglas panes, each of which were designed to channel condensation to the sides of the walls so it would not drip on visitors. The Boettcher Memorial Tropical Conservatory was awarded landmark status in 1973

In 2020 the Gardens published Firsthand: Creating Gardens for All People, commissioned by CEO Brian Vogt, researched by Karen Peters, Davis Benson and Dan Obarski, and published by Beckon Books. The book won the Independent Book Publishers Association Benjamin Franklin Silver Award in the Coffee Table book category in 2021.

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Royal Botanical Gardens of Canada

Canada's Royal Botanic Gardens

Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) is the largest botanical garden in Canada, a National Historic Site, and registered charitable organization with a mandate to bring together people, plants and nature.
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Botanic Gardens Conservation International

Botanic Gardens Conservation International

Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) is a membership organisation, representing botanic gardens in more than 100 countries around the world.
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Memorial University of Newfoundland

Memorial University of Newfoundland

As Newfoundland and Labrador’s only university, Memorial has a special obligation to the people of this province. Established as a memorial to the Newfoundlanders who lost their lives on active service during the First World War and subsequent conflicts, Memorial University draws inspiration from these sacrifices of the past as we help to build a better future for our province, our country and our world.
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United States Forest Service

United States Forest Service

The United States Forest Service is an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation’s 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands covering 193 million acres of land.
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Research

Updates on the North American Botanic Garden Strategy for Alpine Plant Conservation. Emily Griffoul, Conservation Scientist, Betty Ford Alpine Gardens. Rare Plant Symposium 2022

In The News

Can alpine plant species “bank” on conservation?: Using artificial aging to understand seed longevity, Applications in Plant Sciences, September 30, 2022

Case Study: Plant Conservation & Sustainable Tourism at Betty Ford Alpine Gardens, Walking Mountains, Mar 15, 2022

Get Wild: Preserving our precious Alpine wildflowers, Summit Daily, July 3, 2021

New N. American Strategy to Protect Alpine Plants, Colorado Gardener, May 5, 2021

Additional Resources

The following are additional resources included in the NABG Strategy for the Protection of Alpine Plants.

References

The following are references cited in the NABG Strategy for the Protection of Alpine Plants.

 

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  3. North American Botanic Garden Strategy for Plant Conservation, 2016-2020. Illinois (USA): Botanic Gardens Conservation International, U.S.; 2016. [accessed 2020 Feb 21] http://northamericanplants.org/wp-content/up- loads/2016/05/NAGSPC.pdf
  4. Körner C. Alpine Plant Life: Functional Plant Ecology of High Mountain Ecosystems. Berlin: Springer, 2007. p.7.
  5. Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustain- able land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems. Shukla PR, Skea J, Calvo Buendia E, Masson-Delmotte V, Pörtner HO, Roberts DC, Zhai P, Slade R, Connors S, van Diemen R, M. Ferrat M, et al., editors. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2019. In press; p. 7, 50, 183-4, 271-2, 297. [accessed 2020 Feb 25] https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2019/11/SRCCL-Full-Report-Compiled-191128.pdf
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  9. Pederson GT, Graulich LJ, Fagre,DB, Kipfer T, Muhlfeld CC 2010. A century of climate and ecosystem change in Western Montana: what do temperature trends portend? Climate Change. 2010;98:133-154. [accessed 2020 Feb 21] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-009-9642-y
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  13. Parolo G, Rossi G. Upward migration of vascular plants following a climate warming trend in the Alps. Basic and Applied Ecology. 2008;9,100–107. [accessed 2020 Feb 21]. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S1439179107000126
  14. Lesica P, McCune, B. Decline of arctic-alpine plants at the southern margin of their range following a decade of climatic warming. Journal of Vegetation Science. 2004;15:679-690. [accessed 2020 Feb 21] https://onlinelibrary. wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1654-1103.2004.tb02310.x
  15. Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment. [accessed 2020 Feb 21] http://www.gmba.unibe.ch/services/net- work_projects/
  16. Körner C, Paulsen J, Spehn EM. A definition of mountains and their bioclimatic belts for global compar- isons of biodiversity data. Alpine Botany. 2011;121,73-78. [accessed 2020 Mar 24] https://link.springer.com/ article/10.1007/s00035-011-0094-4
  17. Global Strategy for Plant Conservation. https://www.plants2020.net/
  18. Flora of North America. http;//floranorthamerica.org
  19. PLANTS Database: USDA, NRCS. https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/
  20. GLORIA: Global observation research initiative in alpine environments. https://www.gloria.ac.at/species/ vasculars
  21. Rock Garden Plant Database. http://flora.kadel.cz
  22. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. https://www.gbif.org/
  23. iDigBio. https://www.idigbio.org/
  24. NatureServe Explorer Database. http://explorer.natureserve.org/
  25. IUCN Protected Area Management Categories. https://www.iucn.org/theme/protected-areas/about/protected-ar-ea-categories.
  26. Symbiota. http://symbiota.org/docs/
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  32. Center for Plant Conservation. About Us. http://saveplants.org/about-us/
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  34. Weiler,B, Smith L. Does more interpretation lead to greater outcomes? An assessment of the impacts of multiple layers of interpretation in a zoo context. Journal of Sustainable Tourism. 2009;17(5):91-105. https:// www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09669580802359319
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  39. Bidwell A. (2013). The Academic Decline: How to Train the Next Generation of Botanists. US News & World Report. 2013 Nov 12. https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/11/12/the-academic-decline-how-to-train- the-next-generation-of-botanists