Dr Cathy Offord

Dr Cathy Offord is a plant scientist working on the conservation of some of the world’s rarest and most precious species. Her work on conserving the Wollemi pine has made this species a global model for plant conservation and a subject of creative wonder. She has published over ?? peer-reviewed scientific papers and has been instrumental in the development of national and international guidelines for plant conservation in the wild, in botanic gardens and in seed banks. She helped create the world’s most technologically advanced conservation facility - the Australian PlantBank, an ark containing the seeds and tissues of a huge proportion of Australia’s twenty thousand plant species. Cathy’s research interests include understanding how plants survive in extreme environments, from the desert to the alps, to the rainforest. She loves working with educators, artists and writers to create an appreciation of the fragility of our flora and the increasing imperative to preserve it.