The American Botanical Council has presented its annual Steven Foster Award for Botanical Conservation and Sustainability to Anthony “Tony” B. Cunningham, PhD, an ethnobotanist, ethnoecologist, conservationist, artist, and adjunct professor at Murdoch University in Western Australia.

The Steven Foster Award was created in 2022, and recognizes individuals, nonprofit organizations, and commercial herb companies for excellence in conservation and sustainability efforts related to medicinal and aromatic plants. It’s named after the late Steven Foster, a botanist, author, and photographer, to commemorate his years of professional interest, writing, and advocacy work in this field.

The award recipients take action to address botanical conservation and sustainability issues, contribute to a broader understanding of cultural and biological diversity, soil health, climate change, economic justice, and more, and demonstrate appreciation for the beauty of the natural world.

Foster had more than 40 years of experience with sustainability and conservation of herbs and medicinal plants. He served on ABC’s board of trustees for more than two decades, including 10 years as chair. He was a consultant and content contributor for ABC’s Sustainable Herbs Initiative, which was then known as the Sustainable Herbs Program, advocated for botanical industry trade resolutions to protect threatened medicinal botanicals, and was a founding member of the advisory board of the United Plant Savers, a nonprofit plant conservation organization, which was the inaugural recipient of the ABC Foster Award in 2022.

“I admired Steven’s amazing photos of herbs and medicinal plants long before I got to meet him at botanical meetings in the United States,” Cunningham said. “Although from different parts of the world, we shared a common interest in conservation and sustainable use of medicinal plants. I am honoured, therefore, to receive the ABC Steven Foster Botanical Conservation and Sustainability Award for 2025.”

Cunningham has 45 years of experience focusing on uses and trade of natural resources, including value chain analysis, and creating practical conservation solutions related to local livelihoods and sustainable use. He has taught students in Australia, China, India, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, Uganda, and the United States, and has mentored master’s degree and doctoral students from diverse cultural backgrounds.

He has worked in Africa, Asia, Australia, and, to a lesser extent, the South Pacific and Arabian Peninsula.

Cunningham has authored more than 150 publications. His book on plant resource management, Applied Ethnobotany: People, Wild Plant Use & Conservation, which is widely used for teaching at universities across the world.

Cunningham has established strong links with international organizations, including the Kunming Institute of Botany and Chengdu Institute of Biology in China. He was named the Gerrit Wilder chair in botany at the University of Hawaii. Between 1995 and 2002, he was an honorary staff member at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda.

Cunningham was president of the International Society of Ethnobiology (ISE) (1992–1994); ISE board member (1990–1992, 1995–1997); board member of the Center for Biodiversity and Indigenous Knowledge (CBIK) in Yunnan, China (2001–2004); and co-chair of the Medicinal Plant Specialist Group (MPSG) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN’s) Species Survival Commission (SSC) (1993–1998). Most of his life has been spent working with local people, including traditional healers, basket makers, traditional textile producers, and woodcarvers, to develop practical solutions to resource management problems.

In 2016, the Society for Ethnobotany (SEB) recognized his experience through its Distinguished Ethnobotanist Award as a lifetime achievement.

ABC has recognized Cunningham’s contributions for decades. In HerbalGram issue 43 in 1998, Steven Foster reviewed the 1997 project report “Trade in Prunus Africana and the Implementation of CITES,” which Cunningham co-authored. In his review, Foster wrote, “Given its thorough treatment of the subject with clear recommendations and strategies for long-term development of P. Africana supplies, the report serves as a model for other phytomedicine source plant conservation efforts.”

“Tony is not only an internationally renowned ethnobotanist and ethnoecologist, but also a fine artist and photographer,” said Josef Brinckmann, president of ABC’s Board of Trustees. “I met Tony in the early 2000s through a German government-supported steering grouop that was tasked with drafting the first ‘International Standard for the Sustainable Wild Collection of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants’ (ISSC-MAP), which relied on Tony’s prior resource assessment experience … Tony has worked tirelessly, carrying out field research and studies for nature conservation NGOs, governmental CITES authorities, and United Nations agencies, in recent years focusing on highly traded MAP species in the Boswellia, Commiphora, Griffonia, Prunus, and Rhodiola genera, among others,” Brinckmann continued. “It has indeed been an honor and a privilege for me to learn so much from Tony as he generously invited me to collaborate with him on projects including an EU-China Biodiversity Program project ‘Sustainable Management of Traditional Medicinal Plants in the High-Biodiversity Landscapes of Upper Yangtze Eco-region’ (2007–2011) and, more recently, CITES-related research for the German BfN and also the CITES Secretariat.”