The Arnold Arboretum:
An intersection of biodiversity and human diversity in a garden of trees
Date: November 18, 2021
Virtual Meeting
10:00 – 11:30 AM
Submitted by:
William (Ned) Friedman
Director of the Arnold Arboretum Director
Arnold Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Harvard University
What, precisely, is the Arnold Arboretum? A quaint nineteenth century idea? A botanical garden? Public park? Safe harbor for threatened species? Museum collection of living objects? Research collection? Key piece of the public health system in Boston? Locus of environmental justice? Place to help define relationships between humans and other forms of life?
William (Ned) Friedman, the eighth Director of the Arnold Arboretum, will discuss the diverse roles that the Arnold Arboretum is playing at local and global scales through an examination of Harvard’s tree museum and Boston’s most beloved public park. With the backdrop of the profound turbulence of 2020 and early 2021, Friedman will share plans for the Arnold Arboretum’s sesquicentennial in 2022; a launching point to shape the impactful roles that the Arboretum must play over the next century. Front and center will be a keen focus on combating climate change and extinction, promoting environmental justice, and elevating the relevance of the Arboretum for the next generation—all of which were baked into the original ethos of the Arnold Arboretum by Frederick Law Olmsted and Charles Sprague Sargent and seem more thoroughly modern and impactful than ever before.