Kew and the global strategy for plant conservation - Royal Botanic ...

Press Information: September 2010
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Global Strategy for
Plant Conservation
The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) is a cross-cutting conservation initiative
of the United Nations CBD. The GSPC highlights the importance of plants and the ecosystem
services they provide for all life on earth, and aims to ensure their conservation. It was first
proposed in April 2000, following an ad hoc meeting of leading botanists and conservationists
representing international and national organisations and other bodies from 14 countries.
That meeting produced the Gran Canaria Declaration outlining the major elements of a Global
Strategy for Plant Conservation. Subsequently it was adopted by the Parties to the CBD in
April 2002 and fed into government policy around the world. The GSPC has 16 outcomeoriented
targets under 5 main themes; for more information see
http://www.cbd.int/gspc/intro.shtml or
http://www.bgci.org/worldwide/gspc/
In October 2010, a proposal for the update of the GSPC and new plant conservation targets
for the period 2011-2020 will be agreed at the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties
(COP10) in Nagoya, Japan, from 18 to 29 October 2010.
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew’s Director, Professor Stephen Hopper, says: “While not all
targets of the 2010 GSPC have been met, the GSPC has provided an excellent framework
and impetus for organisations, such as botanic gardens, to work together towards common
conservation goals and this puts us in a strong position to work towards the 2020 targets. For
example, at Kew we have helped lay down the foundations for a greater understanding of
plant diversity through initiatives such as The Plant List and the Sampled Red List for Plants.
“An improved GSPC will be crucial for the success of the CBD’s 2011-2020 plans. It is
important that all countries should conserve plant diversity within their wider biodiversity policy
initiatives because of the vital contribution of plant life to the environmental challenges we are
facing, such as climate change, and ultimately human health and wellbeing.”
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is working towards all of the 16 targets of the GSPC. Its
contribution to Targets 1, 2, 8 and 14 is summarised below:
Target 1: The CBD secretariat invited the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to be the facilitating
organisation for Target 1 – a widely accessible working list of known plant species, as a
step towards a complete world Flora
There are over one million different plant names in botanical literature, which means there are
more plant names than there are plant species in the world (perhaps up to 380,000 plant
species). This profusion of plant names can lead to confusion for scientists involved in
researching, documenting and conserving the world’s plant diversity.
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is working in partnership with Missouri Botanic Garden
(USA) to address this by developing The Plant List, the most comprehensive list to date of
scientific names at species level that have been published for plants. At least 80% of the
names in the list will be clearly flagged either as accepted (the correct name for a known plant
species) or as a synonym with a pointer to the correct name. This will transform any search
for information about a particular plant by revealing all its aliases.

The Plant List’s importance lies in the need for accurate identification and reliable names for
all communication about plants and their uses, conservation status and place within
ecosystems. It will be released in late 2010.
Target 2: A preliminary assessment of the conservation status of all known plant
species at national, regional and international levels
Over the last four years, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew’s scientists have disseminated over
7,000 preliminary conservation assessments. Many full assessments have also been
produced through ongoing inventory work, using Kew’s Herbarium collections and field work
with partners, resulting in Red Listing of many species (1). Kew has developed GIS-based
systems to facilitate rapid production of specimen-based preliminary conservation
assessments. This is contributing to Target 2 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation
(the IUCN is the facilitating organisation for Target 2).
In partnership with the Natural History Museum and IUCN Specialist Groups, scientists from
the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is also coordinating the plant component of the IUCN’s
Sampled Red List Index (SRLI) for Plants.
The study is a major baseline for plant conservation and is the first time that the true extent of
the overall threat to the world’s plant species is known; announced prior to governments
meeting in Nagoya, Japan in mid-October 2010 to set new targets at the United Nation's
Convention of Parties to the CBD.
In the future, the project will involve reassessments at regular intervals reassessments, which
will chart the changing fortunes of the world’s plants; much like a stock exchange index shows
the ups and downs in the value of shares. This will highlight where and what conservation
action is needed to protect plants.
The work relies heavily on the vast repository of botanical information held in the Royal
Botanic Gardens, Kew’s Herbarium, Library, Art and Archives, which includes some eight
million preserved plant and fungal specimens; on specimens held in the Natural History
Museum’s own extensive herbarium; on digital data from other sources and on collaboration
with Kew’s network of partners worldwide.
The results of the Sampled Red List Index for Plants will be launched at the Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew at a press call on 28 September 2010 at 10am.
Target 8: 60% of threatened plant species in accessible ex situ collections, preferably
in the country of origin, and 10% of them included in recovery and restoration
programmes
Through the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is making a
significant contribution to the ex situ conservation (2) of threatened plants species.
In October 2009 the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and its international network of partners in
the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership celebrated collecting, banking and conserving 10% of
the world’s wild plant species (c.30, 000 species). It is now working towards a total of 25% by
2020 and the partnership spans over 100 organisations in more than 50 countries. In many
partner countries the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership is the leading initiative implementing
the targets of the GSPC.
The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership has the restoration and sustainable use of natural
capital at its heart. The aim is to not only secure in safe storage 25% of the world's plant
species by 2020, but to also make their seeds available for use in agriculture, horticulture,
forestry and habitat restoration. Plants may help to provide the solutions to many of the big
environmental challenges we face: food security, deforestation, water availability and climate
change. The TEEB (3) study explains this, and suggests to policy makers how to protect and
enhance natural capital, and reaches the inescapable conclusion that we must invest in this

esource now before we lose it altogether. For further information about the Millennium Seed
bank Partnership http://www.kew.org/msbp
In addition to the ex situ conservation of over a billion seeds saved in Kew’s Millennium Seed
Bank – each with the potential to become a plant – the living collections conserved at Kew
Gardens and Wakehurst Place, Kew’s country garden in West Sussex, are also contributing
to Target 8. TW9 and RH17 are two of the world’s most plant biodiverse postcodes and are
home to some 19,400 different species.
Target 14: The importance of plant diversity and the need for its conservation
incorporated into communication, education and public awareness programmes
Every year Kew Gardens welcomes 1.35 million visitors through its gates. Through
interpretation in the Gardens (such as information panels, exhibitions and guided tours), Kew
communicates the value of plant diversity and biodiversity to its visitors. This education role is
also taken beyond Kew’s walls, for example through education initiatives such as The Great
Plant Hunt.
The Great Plant Hunt is an ambitious science programme for primary schools, which aims to
jump-start a lifetime’s interest in plants in every child in the country. For more information
www.greatplanthunt.org.
In addition to the Great Plant Hunt, through the schools education programme, more than
100,000 school children visit Kew Gardens and its sister site, Wakehurst Place, every year.
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew also offers adult educational opportunities, for example
through the Kew Diploma in Horticulture. Delivering scientific training and capacity building in
partner institutions is also another core area of work that satisfies Target 14. For more
information see http://www.kew.org/learn/specialist-training/courses-a-z/kew-diplomahorticulture/index.htm
and http://www.kew.org/learn/specialist-training/sharing-kewexpertise/capacity-building/.
Ends
Notes to editors:
(1) The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species summarises information on the conservation
status and distribution of species for the world’s major groups of plants and animals. The Red
List uses the IUCN Categories of conservation status (Least Concern, Near Threatened,
Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered, and Extinct/Extinct in the Wild) to categorise
species on a global scale in order to highlight groups of animals and plants at risk of
extinction, and promote their conservation.
(2) Ex situ conservation is defined as the conservation of living things outside their natural
habitats, for example in a botanic garden or zoo setting.
(3) The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study is a major international
initiative to draw attention to the global economic benefits of biodiversity, to highlight the
growing costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, and to draw together expertise
from the fields of science, economics and policy to enable practical action to halt biodiversity
loss http://www.teebweb.org/