Today's botanical gardens are used to preserve plants and educate people. The way many of these gardens educate the public is by becoming tourist attractions. Along with gene banks, botanical gardens are often seen as the only piece of the conservation puzzle. Gene Banks Gene banks are another important way of conserving plants. They are different than botanical gardens because they don't store the whole plant.
Gene banks collect genetic material, or germ plasm, and store it in controlled conditions.
There are many problems with gene banks. It costs a lot of money to collect this genetic material. Another problem is that farmers don't have easy access to these materials. Directly or indirectly the government controls most of these gene banks. With this in mind the government can deny countries access to genetic material because of political reasons.