Thematic exhibition launched in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Relict Trees of the Hyrcanian Forest in Talysh Mountains of Southern Azerbaijan.
The first thematic exhibition on Relict Trees of the Hyrcanian Forest in Talysh Mountains of Azerbaijan opened on 2 May 2014 at the Azerbaijan National Academy of Science, in the country's capital Baku. This international exhibition project is a collaborative initiative of the Botanic Garden of the University of Fribourg, the Natural History Museum of Fribourg, Switzerland, the Institute of Botany of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Science, Baku, Azerbaijan, Botanic Gardens Conservation International, United Kingdom, and Design NG Tornay Graphic and Communication, Fribourg, Switzerland.
The exhibition aims to raise awareness of the conservation needs of the spectacular relict flora found in the Hyrcanian region of the Talysh Mountains in southern Azerbaijan. Relict trees form a particularly emblematic component of our natural heritage, having continued to exist all through an enormous time span of the Earth's geological history. Outlasting changing environmental conditions for millions of years, these species provide a unique opportunity to research past, recent and present evolutionary processes and biogeographical distributions. Besides their ecological functions within the ecosystems in which they occur, many relict trees hold important socio-economic use benefits and cultural values. Unprecedented, rapid global transformations in recent history, specifically demographic and climatic changes as well as large-scale land conversion, threaten the survival of numerous unique relict plants.
