News & Events

Important guests in the Botanical Garden

24.06.2021

As part of the Korean state visit, the Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna received a visit from the first ladies from Korea and Austria, Kim Jung-sook and Doris Schmidauer, on June 14. They discussed species conservation and climate change with Garden Director Michael Kiehn, Vice Dean Eva Millesi and researchers from the Faculty of Life Sciences.

Among other things, the garden's collection manager Barbara Knickmann presented the global research project Phenobs, which is studying the effects of climate change on herbaceous plants such as wild garlic and wood anemone. Patrick Strutzenberger (Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research) presented the lifeplan project, which is dedicated to recording global biodiversity and has set up observation points at the Garden; Andrea Kodym (Department of Pharmaceutics) spoke about the Garden's efforts to preserve the endangered narrow-leaved mugwort; and Bernd Lenzner (Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research) explained international collaborations to contain invasive plant species.

First lady Kim Jung-sook emphasized in her statement the importance of science for the conservation of endangered species and the mitigation of climate change, and then thanked for the hospitality with a quite appropriate gift - the speakers received a homi, the multipurpose garden hoe typical for Korea.  Finally, Garden Director Michael Kiehn led the delegation through the Botanical Garden, which as a place of research and as a green oasis in the middle of the big city makes visible the importance attached to the study and protection of nature at the University of Vienna.

© Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea