Plantlife is Proud to Call His Majesty King Charles III our Patron
We have recently received confirmation that His Majesty would be delighted to retain the Patronage of Plantlife International.
Plantlife’s relationship with King Charles III has deep roots and we are immensely grateful for his support in creating a world rich in plants and fungi.
King Charles III became Plantlife’s patron in 1999 when he was HRH Prince of Wales, and his devotion and passion for championing conservation and defending nature has had a galvanising impact on our work.
His passion for species-rich grasslands has brought about significant impact, particularly in our work to restore and expand meadows. From his own meadow at Highgrove, to the Queen’s Meadow in Green Park, London, King Charles has done so much to highlight the value and vulnerability of these special habitats that Plantlife speaks up for.
Our Patron's passion for the world around us; whether climate, people or the health of nature and our planet, wonderfully supports Plantlife's work in delivering such a positive impact towards a world rich in plants and fungi.
Ian Dunn, Plantlife CEO
In 2009 our Patron contributed an urgent forward to our Ghost Orchid Declaration report, ringing the alarm for plant extinctions. Our Patron’s message that “we must rediscover an essential understanding of the role of wild plants of sustaining wellbeing of life on this planet, both physical and spiritual” rings true today.
In 2012 Plantlife published the seminal report Our Vanishing Flora, highlighting how 80 species of wild plants that existed in Britain in the 17th Century had become extinct. Half of those were lost since the 1950s. The sobering Plantlife report caught the eye of the then HRH The Prince of Wales, whose family has shown an enduring passion for preserving nature.
This year, we are celebrating my mother’s coronation so surely there is no better moment to end this destruction and to stimulate a new mood to protect our remaining meadows and to use them as springboards for the restoration of other sites and the creation of new meadows right across the UK.
HRH The Prince of Wales, March 2013
Inspired by the rallying call from our Patron on the 60th anniversary of the Coronation, the Coronation Meadows project was born. The Coronation Meadows conservation partnership project, between Plantlife, The Wildlife Trusts and the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, was launched at Highgrove in 2013 by HRH The Prince of Wales and pioneered a path to the long-term creation and restoration of species-rich grasslands.
Our Patron’s commitment to Coronation Meadows proved to be a gamechanger for meadows creation and restoration and the legacy very much lives on today. Innovative techniques tried and tested under the trailblazing project have proved highly successful and inform current concerted conservation efforts to make more meadows
Nicola Hutchinson, Plantlife Head of Conservation
In recent years, our Patron’s backing has continued to energise our efforts. In February 2020 he held a reception at Highgrove to celebrate Plantlife’s 30th anniversary and endorsed our Strategy to 2030.
Through its mission to share its knowledge, fund future conservation and inspire both the public and the next generation to speak up for plants and the joy that they bring, Plantlife will make an invaluable difference as we tackle these interlinked challenges in the critical decade ahead.
HRH, The Prince of Wales 2020
In 2021, Plantlife and our partners at Bumblebee Conservation Trust and Butterfly Conservation were thrilled that Grasslands+ – our joint effort to raise the urgency to protect and restore global grasslands at COP-26 – was chosen as a case study in the very first annual report from the Terra Carta – our Patron’s mandate to put Nature, People and Planet at the heart of the private sector.
In January 2023, Plantlife was delighted to be chosen as one of seven organisations to be awarded a Strategic Partnerships grant from King Charles III Charitable Fund, allowing us to launch our Science and Impact programme to demonstrate impact, share organisational learning and develop our research networks.
We are very much looking forward to having His Majesties support in years to come, as we know how crucial it is that we protect and restore nature.