I helped to save rare plant from extinction (From Worcester News)

I helped to save rare plant from extinction

10:00am Monday 23rd August 2010 in

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A FORMER student from Worcester has been scaling perilous cliff faces thousands of miles from home in a desperate attempt to save a long-lost plant.

Olivia Renshaw, a graduate of the University of Worcester, was part of a team that rediscovered and revived a thought-to-be-extinct fern in the tiny UK overseas territory of Ascension Island in the South Atlantic.

It has been a hazardous task, involving twice-weekly expeditions, scrambling down the knife-edge ridge running down the wild southern slopes of Green Mountain, Ascension’s dormant volcano, with a safety rope to water and weed the patch.

Miss Renshaw said: “One of Ascension’s endemic ferns that was officially declared extinct on the IUCN Red List and last seen in 1958, was rediscovered last year by my colleague, Stedson Stroud.

“During the months that followed the rediscovery, Stedson and I climbed down a cliff face to take water to the five remaining plants of this species, the Ascension Island parsley fern.

“They were all very delicate and needed taking care of every week. Due to our efforts, the plants survived long enough to produce spores.

“These were collected and there are now many more plants of this species growing on Ascension Island and at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew. This is a fantastic achievement – the fern has gone from extinct to now having a future, thanks to the hard work and dedication of all involved.”

Miss Renshaw moved to Ascension Island last year after seeing an advert for a horticulturist to help with the propagation and cultivation of the island’s rare endemic plants. She is now the assistant conservation officer on the island.

She joined the University of Worcester’s BSc course in horticulture in 2000, spending time studying at both Pershore College and at Worcester.

Miss Renshaw, aged 28, said: “I knew from an early age that I did not want a job where I was tied to a desk all day.”

During the course at Worcester, she spent one year working at Tatton Park National Trust property in her home county of Cheshire.

After graduating, she went on to study for a masters degree at the University of Edinburgh, before working voluntarily at Cambridge, Birmingham and Kew botanical gardens.