The 50^th anniversary of the founding of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden was celebrated at a grand gathering on January 1 at the headquarters.

    The celebration was presided over by Prof. Dr. Cao Min, with cheerful attendance of officials from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and government departments, prestigious scholars from both home and abroad, representatives from cooperative institutions as well as faculties, staff and students of the Garden.

Prof. Dr. Chen Jin, director of XTBG, first enthusiastically extended his warm New Year greetings to all guests and friends present. In his speech titled “Looking back over XTBG’s tumultuous but steadfast development, Longing for greater adventures with a harmonious and unified effort”, Prof. Chen Jin recalled the development history full of hardships and miracles, vicissitudes in adversities, revivals in hardships, and sound and all-rounded development with the implementation of CAS Knowledge Innovation Program. Looking ahead to the future, XTBG is seeking for a special development roadmap and confident with writing a glorious chapter on the new journey to turn XTBG into a world first-class botanical garden, making greater adventures, and embracing a harmonious and unified new era.

Ms. Dao Linyin, sheriff of Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, expressed her warm congratulations to the 50^th birthday of XTBG. In her speech, Ms. Dao fully recognized the contributions of XTBG to the development of Xihsuangbanna over the past half a century, and wished it a brighter future.

Representatives of CAS Kunming Branch and CAS Bureau of Life Sciences & Biotechnology also delivered speech respectively at the gathering.

Prof. He Shan-an, a senior botanist and president of International Association of Botanical Gardens, spoke highly of XTBG. He expressed his heartfelt praise and respect to XTBG pioneers for their hard work and was full of confidence for the future development. He said that XTBG younger generations will make more contributions and the goal of turning XTBG into a world first-class botanical garden will be surely realized.

 By recalling the memories of cooperating with XTBG scientists for many years, Prof. Dr. John Kress described the great changes in XTBG as what he has witnessed.  International cooperation will be enhanced and rewarded, said he.

 As representative of XTBG faculty and staff, Prof. Dr. Li Qingjun spoke at the gathering. Having been working in XTBG for 22 years, he witnessed the vicissitudes and revivals of XTBG. He himself has also become a prestigious scholar and published his research observations in Nature.

A student representative also made remarks.

Many people who have been caring for and supporting the development of XTBG sent congratulatory letters.

Prof. Lu Yongxiang, CAS President and Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of China’s top legislature National People’s Congress, sent his congratulatory message which read “Striving for building up a treasure store of tropical plant resources, exploring the secrets of ecosystems through scientific development”.

Chinese Health Minister Chen Zhu, CAS Executive Vice President Bai Chunli, NSFC President Chen Yiyu and former President Xu Zhihong of Beijing University all sent congratulations to XTBG.