Ex-situ conservation of Hyrcanian boxwood

The loss of earth’s biodiversity is accelerating at an unprecedented rate and proceeding at all levels of ecosystems, species, and genetic resources. Processes related to biodiversity protection are performed to implement the best protection strategies, in which there are two protection strategies (in-situ/ex-situ) with different techniques. Although in-site conservation strategies provide the best option for long-term biodiversity conservation, the short-term survival of many endangered species depends on ex-situ conservation strategies. Hyrcanian box tree, one of the few evergreen forest trees in the region, faced two basic problems, box blight disease (2012) and box tree mouth (2016), resulting in vast habitat destruction during the 1990s.  In this regard, two different ex-situ conservation methods were proposed (1) seed Cryopreservation for the long term and (2) planting outside of natural habitats.  In the second method, some parts, which had been afforested with different species in the past years, were considered, and the seedlings produced in public and private nurseries were planted in it. In this project, a total of 60036 seedlings were planted in an area of about six hectares as an ex-situ conservation stand. As the planting development program continues, the existing area will increase to 13 hectares, and the number of seedlings planted will increase to nearly 130,000.