Sheffield and District Orchid Society Monthly Meeting

Special Talk

Phil Seaton – Talking about orchid concervation in the Americas with a strong focus on community involvement and education.

Phil is an author of a number of books with Kew Gardens and a past manager of the Darwin iniciative orchid seed banking project of Kew.

Our monthly meeting featuring a talk of a month about orchids followed by some refreshments and the orchid table show discussion. Members aso regularly bring some orchids along to sell or give away to other members.

Phil Seaton Biography:

My Fellowship in 2000 was a nine-week journey looking at the ex situ conservation of orchids in Cuba, Mexico, Costa Rica and Ecuador, with a focus on orchid seed banking. (Although by no means fluent, I speak reasonable Spanish.)

I spent 32 years as a biology lecturer in a small local college. After taking early retirement, my Fellowship was key to me following my dream of working full-time in orchid conservation. In 2007 I became Project Manager of the Darwin Initiative Project, OSSSU (Orchid Seed Stores for Sustainable Use) based at Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank, a project with which I am still involved. The aim was to establish a global network of orchid seed banks. I have written and illustrated orchid manuals and books for Kew, and I am currently writing a book about orchid conservation with a colleague in the USA.

My work with OSSSU means that I have travelled extensively around the world promoting orchid conservation, and I regularly give workshops and presentations at conferences both in the UK and abroad. Conservation begins at home, however, and I run an orchid micropropagation lab in a local school, teaching students how to grow orchids from seed.