Sad reality: The rapid decline of botanists
I just read an interesting article entitled "Botanists are disappearing – just when the world needs them most" https://theconversation.com/botanists-are-disappearing-just-when-the-world-needs-them-most-186849
Looking for opinions/suggestions from botanists/expert researchers:
1. What's the status of botanists in your country?
2. What efforts are being taken to overcome the declining trend?
It is indeed a sad reality. We are also highlighting this issue in our 100 Plant Science Questions. Unfortunately, youngsters are neither considering classical plant science (Botany) as a lucrative profession nor funding agencies supporting classical research of the remaining plant scientists. To promote plant science, we need more job opportunities and possibilities for research funding. Although most Indian universities still run Botany or other plant science courses but somehow struggle to produce quality plant scientists (at least in my field of plant science, i.e. seed ecology of wild plants).
In Angola, there is also this dilemma. The most significant research took place in the colonial era, and now with climate problems, the attention is on intervention projects for the conservation of biodiversity. The problem is that in Angola a lot is still to be discovered and many times we conserve the habitat without knowing what biodiversity we are conserving until the side of the road there is scientific news.
It is vital that the world opens up again to taxonomists as we want to study the ecological problems in the world.
It is a global observation.
At the Nangui Abrogoua University (the second public university in Abidjan, after the Félix Houphouët Boigny University), the number of students who opt for Botanical Science after the general cycle is about 5%, or even less, of the total number of students enrolled in the Natural Sciences department. I have made this finding over more than a decade of observations.
The main reason cited by students is the difficulty in studying or remembering plant names. They also often mention the hardness with which plant biology courses are teached. And, in his lifetime, when we asked the eminent Botanist, Professor Aké-Assi L., what he thought was the reason for the students' lack of interest in Botany, he answered that it is the lack of passion among both teachers and students. The critical question that needs to be answered is "How do we teach Botany in order to create and develop passion in students?"
I agree with this article, which states, "Reviving botanical education is possible by presenting students and the public with evidence of how plants can combat the challenges of the 21st century." Botany teachers should promote the discipline already in the first study year (if we limit to the University), through discovery conferences (theoretical), but especially excursions, planned visits to botanical gardens, etc. The courses should be more practical than theoretical.