As incoming Secretary General, I would like to pay tribute to Sara Oldfield, my predecessor, who has helped to build an organization in BGCI that I believe provides a unique and invaluable service to its members and more generally to the plant conservation community worldwide. Like Sara, I believe that the most important issue we need to address as a professional community is the loss of plant diversity. We can do this by bringing our unique, knowledge, skills and resources to bear to prevent species extinctions and by sharing that knowledge with broader society. Over the following months, I will be working with the BGCI team to set out a 5-year Business Case and Plan which we will circulate in draft form to our members for their input. As a precursor to this, I will be in touch with as many of you as possible, to hear what you think about BGCI, how we might work better together and what we can do on your behalf. I am hugely excited by the challenge and opportunity that BGCI represents, and I very much look forward to working with you over the coming years.
