Finep and Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden sign agreement to release R$8 million for scientific collections

The Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden was awarded R$8 million in the Finep/MCTI Call for Proposals for the Recovery and Preservation of Collections 2024. The funds will be used to modernize, restore, re-equip and expand the institution's scientific collection. The president of Finep, Celso Pansera, and the president of the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden, Sergio Besserman Vianna, signed the Research, Development and Innovation Agreement on Thursday, February 27, at a ceremony held at the JBRJ Herbarium.

The Botanical Garden had three projects approved with top marks. Around R$7.4 million will be invested in the infrastructure and treatment of the Herbarium's collection, which has more than 900,000 plant samples. The Rio Botanical Garden Herbarium is the largest in South America and among the 100 largest in the world. Another R$575,000 will be invested in the modernization and expansion of Jabot, the scientific collection management system created by the Botanical Garden and made available to 100 partner herbaria, having reached more than 3 million plant records last January.

“Among the advances, the Herbarium will gain a fully automated fire extinguishing system that uses non-toxic gas, without causing damage to the scientific collection if it is triggered, and preserving the physical integrity of the institution's team of scientists and technicians. It will also receive a new central refrigeration system, which will be more efficient in terms of controlling the temperature of the collection and more economical in terms of energy consumption,” explains JBRJ's Director of Scientific Research, Leonardo Tavares Salgado.

The acquisitions of equipment and physical expansion are aimed at an adequate and safe growth of the collection, providing documentation of more than 51,000 new botanical samples, improving conservation conditions and the daily handling of thousands of samples. They will also enable more effective control of infestation by contaminating organisms, guaranteeing the overall protection of the Herbarium's collection. This will also help prevent damage to collections that are currently in temporary storage and not available for public consultation. With these improvements, the JBRJ Herbarium will be ready to reach 1 million botanical samples preserved, documented and made available in digital images in the coming years.

At the event, Sergio Besserman Vianna thanked and congratulated Finep's current management for this call for proposals and stressed the importance of providing citizens with access to scientific collections. “This call for proposals called Recovery and Preservation of Collections can also be called Building Futures,” he said. “We need to invest in science, because that is where the country's future will come from,” said Celso Pansera. He announced that Finep is expected to invest R$14.5 billion by 2025, meeting the great pent-up demand for resources from research institutions and universities in recent years.

The ceremony was also attended by Finep's chief of staff, Fernando Peregrino, the president's advisor, Ima Vieira, and JBRJ's director of scientific research, Leonardo Salgado.

After signing the agreement, the Finep delegation visited the Herbarium's facilities accompanied by the JBRJ's Biological Collections coordinator, Clarice Martins Ribeiro, who presented some items from the institution's collection and explained the benefits that the agreement will bring to the maintenance, expansion, treatment and availability of herborized collections. 

The Finep delegation visits the RB Herbarium accompanied by the Biological Collections coordinator Clarice Martins