Plant Diversity Challenge - Plantlife

Objective 3: Using Plant Diversity SustainablyOngoing actions contributing tomeeting the targetThere are few UK commitments relating tothis target. If the UK is successful in achievingtarget 14, then it is likely that there will be amuch greater appreciation of plant resources.Target 13:Providing sustainable livelihoodsdependent on plant resourcesThe decline of plant resources, and associated indigenousand local knowledge innovations and practices, thatsupport sustainable livelihoods, local food security andhealth care, halted.Lower priority or long-term additionalwork• Watching brief to ensure that no plantresources become threatened through nonsustainableexploitationScopeTarget 13 focuses explicitly on the status of plants used by, and important to, localpeople. Plant resources may be either domesticated or wild, and their productsinclude the material (e.g. for food, medicines, firewood, ecological services), and theimmaterial (e.g. aesthetic, cultural or spiritual).The link between local, rural peopleand local plants is reinforced by the target’s reference to sustainable livelihoods –implying a right of access – and to the knowledge that helps underpin them.Thetarget recognises the intricate relationship between biodiversity conservation andlocal sustainable use.Current situationIn rural areas of the UK, subsistence dependence on plant resources is, at most,extremely rare.There are however (mostly part-time or seasonal) livelihoodsexploiting them and selling products into the cash economy. Most UK plantresources utilised covered here are ‘wild’ (with or without management) and arethemselves not under threat.In England coppiced, broad-leaved woodlands are the prime habitat location forsustainable livelihoods. Coastal and freshwater wetlands have locally valued resourcessuch as algae, reed (for thatching) and willows (for basketry).A new, directexploitation of plant resources is the collecting of seeds for habitat creation orrestoration.The collecting of edible fungi has expanded away from personal use tocommercial levels (involving non-local people), although the scale is still minutecompared with elsewhere in Europe.As yet, neither with fungi nor with otherexploited plant resources in the UK is there decline through these commerciallydrivenactivities alone; although there is concern over moss collection, which needsto be more carefully monitored.Looking to the futureUnless precautionary principles dictate a cautionary view of the UK’s future, somekey components of target 13 will not have any (at least short-term) impact. Forexample, no one in the UK has a vested interest in managing and conserving localplant resources for food security, and the direct role of UK plants in healthcare isminute. Despite the growth of interest in natural or alternative therapies, very fewpeople collect medicinal plants for their own purposes, and even fewer forcommercial ones. But the pleasure given by plants in the landscape, and the healthbenefits (however immeasurable) of such contact with nature, are undeniable.Country agency strategies now recognise the correlation.38