Plant Diversity Challenge - Plantlife

Objective 4: Promoting Education and Awareness about Plant DiversityOngoing actions contributing tomeeting the target• Implementation of country biodiversityplans for education and awarenessTarget 14:Communicating and educatingThe importance of plant diversity and the need for itsconservation incorporated into communication,educational and public awareness programmes.High priority additional work• Public launch to help promote this reportas the UK response to the Global Strategy.Scope“People conserve what they love, they love what they understand and theyunderstand what they are taught”.Target 14 seeks to implement this old Sri Lankanproverb and influence communication, awareness and education programmes to helpdeliver the Global Strategy.Current situationThe importance of education and raising public awareness about biodiversity ingeneral is firmly established in the emerging country biodiversity strategies. Indeedpublic attitudes to biodiversity have been recently assessed in England:• The proportion of people in England concerned about the loss of wildlife in theUK has risen from 38% in 1986 to 50% in 2001.• Awareness of the term biodiversity has increased from 22% in 1996 to 26% in2001.The country strategies include a comprehensive set of targets to address awarenessand education needs. Central to these strategies is the need to encourage contactwith nature. Botanical societies, the Natural History Museum and the Wildlife Trustsare among many organisations that encourage people to have contact with and raiseawareness about wild plants.The BSBI and Plantlife International have, for example, ajoint project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund called ‘Making it Count for Peopleand Plants’.This is designed to encourage more people to get involved in plantrecording by tailoring surveys to people with differing skills. In turn theirunderstanding of plants and plant conservation improves. Moreover, high profilevisitor attractions such as the botanic gardens at Edinburgh and Kew and The EdenProject are important resources which foster enthusiasm for plant conservation.Looking to the futurePeople need to be aware of the importance of the Global Strategy and the UKresponse and encouraged to participate in its implementation.The consultationprocess to date has helped secure support, but a broader section of the communitywill need to be involved. Opportunities must be found to help promote this strategythrough the popular press.40