In the face of the degradation of the ecosystems and resulting rapid decline of biodiversity, in 2007, the Taiwan Cement Company sponsored the establishment of the Dr. Cecilia Koo Botanic Conservation Center (KBCC), whose mission is to conserve tropical and subtropical plants to sustain earth’s biodiversity.

Over the past 10 years, KBCC has collected species of plants, becoming the world's richest living plant conservation collection, and plans to reach 40,000 species of plants by 2027. These plants will be the material for the future restoration of ecosystems through re-enforcements and reintroductions. The collection represents material used by scholars to study biological relationships, develop new drugs and horticulture techniques. It has been widely used by academics and several papers have been published from this work.

A considerable number of species in the KBCC collection have been identified by regional and global sources as threatened under the categories of either Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable to the threat of extinction. As living individuals of these species are difficult to obtain, the number of individuals kept in the KBCC is often very small, and it is urgent to conserve these species through a sustainable breeding program. KBCC's collection managers have proposed a list of priority conservation species with the aim of securing the plants through proliferation of 100 to 1000 individuals per species within 3 years. The individuals will be transplanted to the original habitat and shared with the world's major botanical gardens. Therefore, KBCC invites the public to participate in the conservation of these threatened species through the sponsoring of work for the following species.