Horticulturists attend to the ‘Rising sun’ display at the Kew Orchid Festival: Costa Rica, at the Royal Botanic Gardens
(Picture: PA Wire)The director of Kew Gardens has admitted that he is worried that public confidence in science has been hit by the pandemic.
Richard Deverell said it would be “lunacy” to reject scientific arguments and added that he wanted Kew to play its part in educating the public.
Anti-vaccination protests, often fuelled by conspiracy theories spread on the internet, have been a regular feature on the streets of London and other global cities in the past year.
Last week anti-vax campaigners were among a mob who targeted Opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer.
Mr Deverell, who runs the 300-acre site which is both a major tourist attraction and a renowned research centre, told the Standard: “Many times I’ve pondered over the last two years with the whole coronavirus experience whether public confidence in science and scientists has risen or fallen.
“On the one hand you’ve got the remarkable achievements of the vaccine development. On the other you’ve had all of the uncertainty with the SAGE forecasts and modelling, which has sometimes been right and sometimes hasn’t been. I hope public confidence in science has risen but I don’t know. I do worry about it.”
He added: “It seems to me science is fundamentally a tool to help us understand the world around us and it’s based on evidence and challenge. If we were to move away from science as a tool to help us solve problems, that way, in my opinion, lunacy lies.”
The Botanic Gardens, rooted in two royal country estates, are home to 50,000 living plants and around seven million preserved plant specimens. Plans are under way to digitise the collection which Mr Deverell said would “liberate it”, adding: “We gathered them from countries around the world and we should make them available to countries around the world.”
He said Kew lost around £5 million last year as lockdown and international travel restrictions hit the tourist trade. Visitor numbers are not expected to return to pre-pandemic levels until around 2025. But he said he wanted Kew to play its part in expanding public education and has introduced £1 tickets for people on universal credit or pension credit.
He said he hoped the ticketing plan, which has seen around 600 people sign up, and events including a summer-long series on the future of food and sustainability, will bring in more people.
