This month Private Eye, the UK’s top magazine for investigative journalism, printed the following, summing up the situation:

“When Kew Gardens director Richard Deverell was awarded the CBE for “services to botanical science and conservation” in the new year honours, hollow laughter rang out from botanists at Kew.

They have been fighting Deverell’s plan to move their world renowned herbarium and its 7 million specimens to a commercial science park south of Reading. They believe the move will cause irreparable harm, dividing the herbarium from the laboratories at Kew and from its living collections.

The management, led by former BBC children’s television controller Deverell, argue the taxpayer funded project is needed to enable the collection’s expansion and protection, and to create a new “centre of excellence”. They also have plans to develop the vacated historic herbarium buildings.

Last month the board of trustees confirmed that the move would go ahead. According to Kew, “technical due diligence” on the new site has been completed and planning for the new buildings can begin. The trustee’s decision flies in the face of 20 scientists who argued it would hamper research. It also goes against more than 170 staff who expressed concerns about shifting the herbarium.

A petition arguing that the relocation would threaten Kew taxonomists’ urgent work “addressing the global extinction crisis” has now been signed by more than 17,000 people including scientists from across the world.

With the trustees’ agreement, Kew’s management hopes to complete the move by 2030. Those against at Kew are scared to speak out after being told they must not make unapproved comments to the media. Their one remaining hope is that Defra, which runs Kew as an arms length body, will refuse to stump up the estimated £200m needed to relocate the herbarium.

If you live in the UK, please consider raising this issue with your MP.

Here is how to do this in 3 steps:

1. Go to https://www.writetothem.com/ , enter your postcode and click on the displayed MP name.

2. In your own words, keeping it short and clear, tell your MP how the planned move of Kew Herbarium would affect you & ask your MP to raise this with the DEFRA minister.

3. Fill in your email, address and name and click on SEND.

Please, help us getting to 20,000 names by signing and sharing the link to this petition https://chng.it/vsDT2xmKXN to avoid catastrophe and Keep the Kew Herbarium at Kew!

For further updates also follow us on Twitter (X), Facebook or Instagram @KewKeepers. 

Please help us stop this crazy plan

Curator Botanist savekewherbarium@gmail.com