Working towards building a more diverse and inclusive community of BSBI botanists

Joni Cook at Dimminsdale LNR,
Leicestershire
Image courtesy of J. Cook

BSBI’s Strategy 2024-27 includes the goal of inspiring, building and supporting a diverse community of botanists to sustain and develop the skill base. To reach that goal, we knew that we had to find even more ways of engaging a broader community by identifying – and then working to reduce - any barriers to participation.

This is why BSBI set up an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Working Group in 2024 to brainstorm ideas that would help us make botany more accessible for everyone, and then come up with a statement and an action plan that we could take forwards. Joni Cook, Secretary of our Events & Communications Committee and a key member of the EDI Working Group, has offered an update on progress so far.

Over to Joni:

“It was fantastic to see the launch of the BSBI Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Statement in March 2025 - what really excites me about this development, and bolsters my hope in these troubled times, can be emphasised by Maya Angelou’s powerful words “In diversity there is beauty and there is strength”. With nature in the UK in crisis - known ranges of 53% of native plants have declined since the 1950s - driven by the rising impacts of climate breakdown amongst other drivers and society grappling with the consequences of these interconnected challenges including sharply rising inequality amongst a dramatically shifting political climate exacerbated by a cost-of-living crisis and the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic which are negatively impacting marginalised groups the most, there has never been greater urgency to drive progress towards making botany accessible for everyone.

"The BSBI EDI Statement sets out the Society’s commitment to actively championing EDI across all activities - striving to make botany accessible to everyone, continuously learning, adapting, and being accountable for progress. By working collaboratively to uphold this statement through actively embedding EDI in everything that we do and accelerate a just and equitable transition towards making botany accessible for everyone, we will not only bolster the BSBI’s resilience and success, but also build a more inclusive, diverse botanical community which empowers underrepresented groups, elevates marginalised voices and drives collective action for the UK’s wild plants.

"Building appreciation for plants, highlighted as a key action in the results of the BSBI Plant Atlas, is a critical part of the solution to accelerate this transition and drive progress in conserving, restoring and enriching the UK’s flora. Reducing ‘plant awareness disparity’ (PAD), a difficulty in recognising and appreciating wild plants, will help people to reconnect with nature which nurtures nature guardianship and is a particularly pressing issue in the UK – where adults are amongst the least connected to nature worldwide, ranking 59th out of 65 national groups surveyed.

Recording the urban flora during 
New Year Plant Hunt 2024
Image: L. Marsh

"Results also highlighted the inequalities in connectedness to nature across different social groups. For example, people with less financial security, lower level of education, living in an urban location or who are not of a racial majority in a particular country experienced a lesser connection with nature. These findings highlight the importance of championing an equitable approach to reducing barriers to botany access for those who at present are the most disconnected from nature. With plant-based citizen science initiatives shown to have high potential to boost interest in and engagement with wild plants, the BSBI’s New Year Plant Hunt, with its wide geographical reach and continual success - the 2025 Plant Hunt engaged over 3000 participants across Britain and Ireland including via numerous group hunts in urban locations, is just one example of the BSBI’s diverse range of initiatives which offers immense opportunity for widening participation and acting as a gateway for empowering underrepresented groups to set out on personal botanical journeys.

"In light of the immense disparity in access to nature in the UK, accelerating progress towards making botany accessible for everyone will contribute towards improving the health and well-being of those who are most in need. Nearly one in five people struggle to access green space in the UK, for example ethnically diverse communities, people living on low incomes and people living in northern regions are more likely to living in places without access to green space, and more likely to suffer poorer health outcomes. The UK is in the midst of a mental health crisis – in 2024, more than 1 in 7 UK adults say their mental health is currently either bad, or the worst it’s ever been, which has intensified since the Covid-19 pandemic. Furthermore, inequalities in mental health are prevalent – the greatest increase in poor mental health has been seen in people of younger ages (16-34 years). Spending time with plants can, it has been demonstrated, boost mental health and well-being – looking at a flower for just six seconds has been shown to lower blood pressure and stress levels, and indeed spending time in nature, even just 15 minutes, can reduce stress, and improve cardiovascular health and mood.

Joni recording the urban flora
with the Leicester Botany Group
Image: L. Marsh

"There is tremendous potential to reduce these inequalities in access to nature and associated health impacts through actively engaging underrepresented groups with plants through BSBI initiatives and activities. The network of BSBI local groups in Britain and Ireland, predominantly based in cities and major towns, offers immense opportunity to expand engagement with urban communities through group botany events which are free of charge and held within easy reach by public transport or active travel. There is also opportunity to expand on the BSBI’s recent increased engagement with people of younger ages. Sarah Woods, BSBI Fundraising & Engagement Manager, noted how wonderful it was to have so many more younger botanists participating in the BSBI British & Irish Botanical Conference 2024 compared with previous years. Engagement is also being boosted through diversification of the BSBI’s social media presence, where BSBI Events & Communications Committee member Lindsay-Anne Heald is doing superb work in building a strong presence on TikTok, helping botany to reach younger audiences and to ensure continuity of botanical expertise across generations. With the Department of Education recently announcing plans for the introduction of a GCSE in Natural History, there is future potential to collaborate with participating institutions to introduce botany to young people. One key initiative of the BSBI’s EDI Working Group, which is being implemented in 2025, is a greater emphasis on collecting feedback from event participants. This includes an option for attendees to share their EDI data, which will enable BSBI to establish a baseline upon which evidence-based, measurable progress and ongoing monitoring of EDI goals can be made.      

"At a fundamental level, access to botany and as a result, increased botanical literacy, is empowering, opening up opportunities such as employment, further education and volunteering. For example, progression to Level 4 (‘Good ID skills’) on the BSBI Botanical Skills ladder enables the undertaking of National Vegetation Classification (NVC) surveys as part of consultancy work, teaching of vocational courses, or becoming an Identiplant tutor. Empowerment of underrepresented groups in botany is particularly important considering the urgent broader needs for addressing stark inequalities in post-compulsory STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education, particularly in terms of socio-economic background, gender and ethnicity, and in the environmental sector which is the second least diverse of all sectors in the UK, for example with just 4.81% identifying as Black, Asian or from other minority ethnic groups, compared to 12.64% across all UK sectors. There is huge potential to build on taking a targeted, equitable and inclusive approach to opening up opportunities for underrepresented groups through BSBI activities. A recent example is the provision of Welsh translations for two BSBI publications, thanks to the Welsh Government's RhydweighartNatur Programme, provided by the Heritage Fund, which is boosting opportunities for Welsh communities, particularly those situated in rural areas, to engage with botany. It is not only people who will benefit from making botany accessible for everyone, but the BSBI too – organisations that take a bold approach to embracing EDI are more likely to be successful and resilient – for example, making use of the passion, talents, skills sets and perspectives that diverse communities provide can boost creativity, enhance innovation and reduce risk.

Joni enjoying the canalside flora at
Aylestone Meadows Nature Reserve, Leicester
Image: L. Marsh

"I would like to propose that advancing progress towards EDI goals should not be siloed in the BSBI community or even in botany as a scientific discipline, but to consider instead approaching our EDI journey as part of broader transitions within the environmental sector and indeed as part of a collective drive towards forging an inclusive and just society. In this respect, the importance of making and maintaining strong collaborations with a diverse range of organisations and actors, and the resultant cooperative exchange of knowledge, skills and experiences, cannot be over emphasised. For example, for the Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) programme (where I work as part of the UK-based core team), the ‘leave no-one behind’ agenda is of central importance to programme activities and aim of accelerating access to clean, electric cooking, and transdisciplinary and global collaborations with a wide range of partners, such as communities, NGOs, governments, private sector, academia and research institutes, and policy representatives across 16 countries of interest are key to driving action on the ground towards achieving this. It is wonderful therefore to see a collaborative approach in the environmental sector being championed through the recent launch of a joint statement ‘Nature for all: diversity makes us stronger’ by the UK Terrestrial Evidence Partnership of Partnerships (UKTEPoP) initiative, of which the BSBI is one of the 10 partners, pledging commitment to diversity, equity & inclusion in UK species monitoring schemes. The UKTEPoP initiative is just one example of a variety of collaborations in which BSBI is engaging in order to drive EDI progress in the environmental sector, other examples include as a signatory of The RACE Report and (from 2025) contributing data to monitor racial diversity within the sector as well as monitoring the BSBI’s progress, and working with partners to engage with diverse communities in botany projects, and learning from this work, for example the Eco-Museum of Scottish Mining Landscapes Project.

"By working together to champion equity, diversity and inclusion by embedding in all our activities – identifying and breaking down barriers to participation, empowering people from all backgrounds with botanical skills and knowledge, amplifying and celebrating underrepresented voices, building an inclusive and vibrant botanical community and accelerating progress towards the goal of access to botany for everyone – we will deliver multiple cascading benefits for the UK’s threatened plants, the BSBI, all of us – the BSBI community, and indeed contribute to progress towards achieving a kind, compassionate, socially just and nature-centric wider society”.