Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria plays a leading role in the conservation of plants through biodiversity research, programs to protect rare and threatened plants, and the study of habitats. This work is supported by education and visitor programs about the importance of plants to life. The organisation encompasses two diverse sites at Melbourne and Cranbourne and the State Botanical Collection housed at the National Herbarium of Victoria. Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria is managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens Board Victoria, which is responsible to the Minister for Environment and Climate Change. Our charter is to conserve, protect and improve the botanic gardens and managed land and their collections of living plants, to conserve and enhance the State Botanical Collection and National Herbarium of Victoria, to provide for the use of the State Botanical Collection or plants or plant specimens at the botanic gardens or managed land for scientific or reference purposes, consistent with accepted international practice, to increase public knowledge and awareness of plants and plant communities, to provide for the use of the Botanic Gardens for education, public enjoyment and tourism, to provide for the carrying out of and contribution to research into biodiversity and the conservation of biodiversity.