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Plant Diversity Challenge: the Official UK Response to the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation

Front cover of Plant Diversity Challenge report

In the late 1990s, plant conservationists decided that something drastic was needed to draw attention to the plight of the plants around the world and hopefully halt the loss of species – how was this to be done? At the 16th International Botanical Congress held in St Louis, Missouri in 1999, a resolution was passed by the 5,000 botanists attending urging the world community to recognise plant conservation as an outstanding global priority. Responding to this call, Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) organised a meeting in 2000 to consider the need for a new global initiative in support of plant conservation, and this led to the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), which was ratified by the Conference of the Parties of the CBD in 2002. The strategy listed 16 broad-reaching and challenging targets to be met by 2010. These ranged from the development of a working list of all taxa and identification of the levels of threats to different species to training the next generation to carry on the job of conserving the world flora.

In response to the publication of GSPC, a conference organised by Plantlife International, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and Kew was held at Kew in 2003, with the aim of formulating the UK response to GSPC. After a period of consultation, the resulting document, Plant Diversity Challenge (PDC), was launched in 2004, with participation from government departments in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales in addition to the three bodies that organised the conference. It was the first national response to GSPC. Although largely based on the 16 targets set out in GSPC, the UK document inevitably focused on the local situation – a major difference was the inclusion of fungi in PDC, as many of the targets in GSPC for plants had already been met or were easily achievable in the UK, whereas the fungi needed some help. Our flora is one of the best studied worldwide, and Target 1 (relating to the development of a working list of all species) was to all intents and purposes completed for plants in the UK a long time ago. In contrast, there was no working list for many groups of fungi, and effective conservation relies on accurate knowledge of biodiversity – you can’t conserve something if you don’t know it is there. The recently published Checklist of British and Irish Basidiomycota is a major contribution to meeting Target 1.

Where are we up to? Even for the UK, some of the targets are challenging, and in April 2006, another conference will be held at Kew (again co-organised by Kew, JNCC and Plantlife International) to assess progress against the targets and to formulate a strategy for how to reach the targets. Discussions are underway about the possibility of preparing the equivalent document for the UK Overseas Territories.

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