Paul Smith

Dr. Paul Smith is the Secretary General and CEO of Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI). BGCI is the largest plant conservation network in the world, comprising 900 member institutions in >100 countries. BGCI leads the Global Tree Assessment, and recently published the State of the World’s Trees Report showing that one third of the world’s 60,000 tree species are threatened with extinction. Paul trained as a plant ecologist and is a specialist in the plants and vegetation of southern and south-central Africa. He is the editor of The Ecological Survey of Zambia and The Book of Seeds, and author of Trees: from root to leaf.