Alberta, Canada
Hello Dr Rene Smit,
I can think of no finer time than the present and the future to conserve and save Botanical Gardens the world round. We seem to be in a headlong frenzy to bulldoze down forests and scrape off all the soil everywhere in the world while we build bigger and bigger cities, with more and more massive highways to connect them.
Please put my name down as someone who supports the saving of the Botanic Gardens.
Robin Leech, PhD, P.Biol. Executive Director Alberta Society of Professional Biologists Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Dear Mr. Smit,
Although I am a Doctor of Medicine, and ordinarily in favour of expanding medical facilities, I think it would be a tragic loss to close the Free University Botanical Garden. It is needless for me to repeat all the well-known virtues of the garden, and it would be superfluous for me to list all the possibilities that an expanded medical facility would offer. However, the botanical garden exists, and the expanded medical facility does not.
We all know that space is limited. I presume all possibilities, such as going up many stories for a medical complex, have been explored. I presume also that relocation of the Botanical Garden has been considered, which would preserve much of its value, and eventually could prove to have been a smart move.
I wish I had the answer.
Carlyle A. Luer, M.D.Senior Curator Missouri Botanical Garden.
Dear Dr. Smit,
I was informed that the Botanical Garden of the Vrije Universiteit (Free University) of Amsterdam is slated to be closed. Considered the important role the Botanical Garden plays in providing a green oasis for patients of the University Medical Centre and the campus population and in maintaining valuable collection of plants, let me express all my concern about this threat.
Best regards,
Prof. Valeria NegriDip. Biologia Applicata
Università degli Studi
Borgo XX Giugno 74
Perugia Italy
http://www.agr.unipg.it/dbvba/
Dear colleagues of the Botanic Garden of the Vrije Universiteit (Free University) of Amsterdam, the Netherlands,
Dear Dr. René Smit,
We are much concerned about your very difficult situation of the closing possibility of the Botanic Garden. We express our deeply adhesions to your actions, in order to stop the construction of a building instead of the existing Botanic Garden.
The Botanic Garden of the Vrije Universiteit (Free University) of Amsterdam has a real scientific value, of much interest, both as an European institution as well as a National one.
We value a lot the the quality of our exchange of botanic materials with the Botanic Garden of the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam, as well as the readiness way to solve of our demands of seeds and other botanical issues.
We are convinced that you will find a proper way that your institution to remain functional and open, both to the public, as well as to those specialists interested in thoroughgoing study of your plant collections, well known among the similarly institutions of this kind from all over the world.
Sincerely,
Catalin and Andrian