Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy

Illicium sp. photographed near the summit of Mt Fansipan in Vietnam. Photo: courtesy of Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy

Hidden away in the comparative far reaches of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula is a small botanical nonprofit with a global reach, Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy (FRBC).  Officially in its second year, this nonprofit has been in the making for quite some time.

As FRBC founding directors, we—Sue Milliken and Kelly Dodson—have long been advocates for the conservation of vulnerable plants. We also own Far Reaches Farm, one of the leading rare plant nurseries in the United States. For years, the nursery has subsidized the acquisition, conservation, and distribution of important yet spectacularly unprofitable plants. Not surprisingly, financial constraints necessarily limited the scope of these activities. As plant hunters and explorers who met on an expedition in Yunnan in 1997, we have witnessed first-hand the exponential burden placed on fragile wild plant populations. The adverse effects are primarily from exploding human pressure, but climate change is playing an ever-larger rol...