A Kew-designed layout and 300 acres at Palode: Kerala's conservatory botanic garden

Background

The Calicut University Botanical Garden, declared a Biodiversity Heritage Site earlier, now has that recognition put on a formal footing by a gazette notification, and it is the first such site on a university campus in Kerala, which is a good moment to place the State's own botanic research institute. JNTBGRI stands at Palode in Thiruvananthapuram district and works under the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment. The Government of Kerala set it up, and the idea had been taken up after the first United Nations Conference on Human Environment at Stockholm. Professor A. Abraham was its Founder Director, and the Kew Botanic Gardens helped design and lay out the garden in its early years. Before it was renamed for Jawaharlal Nehru it went by the name Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute. Its conservatory garden of wild tropical plant genetic resources covers 300 acres. The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests recognises it as a National Centre of Excellence for conserving tropical plant diversity away from its natural home, and it belongs to Botanic Gardens Conservation International.