From October 11th to 13th, 2020, the annual conference of China Botanical Gardens was held in Shenyang, Liaoning, with an aim of discussing functions and social responsibility of botanical gardens and promoting the long-term development of botanical gardens in China. The annual conference is organized by the Chinese Botanical Society, Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation of China and China Wild Plant Protection Association, and hosted by Shenyang Tourism Group Co.,Ltd. and the Shenyang Botanical Garden. It is co-sponsored by the Chinese Botanical Gardens Alliance, the Botanical Garden Working Committee of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), International Association of Botanical Gardens (IABG), East Asian Botanical Garden Network (EABGN), and the Botanical Environment and Diversity Committee of the Chinese Environmental Society.

The theme of the annual conference is "Protecting Plants and Maintaining the Community of Life," which included three thematic forums: plant biodiversity conservation; management and operation of botanical gardens; and botanical environment, nature education and science popularization. Nearly 300 representatives from more than 60 botanical gardens across China attended the annual conference.

Prof. HE Xingyuan, director of the Arboretum of the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE), Chinese Academy of Sciences, was invited to attend the conference and deliver a keynote talk. His talk, the Research on Ecological Service and Functions of Urban Forests in Northern China, was mainly about the key ecological service and functions of urban forests, the relationship between urban forest structure and functioning, and the response of urban forests to climate change. The experts and guests participating in the conference conducted in-depth exchanges and discussions on hot issues such as the emission of volatile organic compounds from urban trees and the remediation of heavy-metal polluted soil using garden plants.

On the afternoon of October 10th, "Species Conservation Standards for the Core Botanical Gardens of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and National Live Plant Collection Symposium," which was organized by the South China Botanical Garden of CAS and hosted by the Arboretum of IAE, CAS, was held in IAE's Huishan campus. The participating experts and representatives, nearly 50 people from the core botanical gardens of CAS, conducted heated discussions on the live plant collection system, plant introduction and collection specifications, ex-situ conservation specifications, information record & management specifications, national standards for building live plant collection park, and the construction and application of live plant information sharing platform.

On the morning of October 10th, all symposium participants visited the Huishan campus of IAE as well as the parks and areas for different types of introduced plants. Visitors had warm exchanges on plant species conservation done in the campus and gave a high evaluation to the work of plant collection and conservation of IAE.