1. A note from CBCN Executive Director
2. Message from Ahmed Djoghlaf
3. Plant conservation in a changing world
4. Preparing to Launch the North American Botanic Gardens Conservation Strategy
5. Biodiversity, climate change, and cultural diversity
6. The urgent need for biodiversity information
7. Adapting to a Changing World
8. The Canadian University Biodiversity Consortium and a new biodiversity center at the Montréal Botanical Garden
9. Stopping the Green Invasion! Memorial University of Newfoundland Botanical Garden Takes Aim at Invasive Alien Species
10. What's Coming Up at CITES CoP 14
11. Letter from Wuhan: A report on the Third Global Botanic Gardens Congress
12. The Montréal Botanical Garden Formally Reinforces its Commitment to Biodiversity Conservation, and hosts a Wollemi Pine
13. Meeting of the Canadian Pollination Protection Initiative
14. Summer is around the corner. Make it count!
15. First Sustainability Camp: a Success
16. Earth Day Celebration at UBC Botanical Garden

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3. Plant conservation in a changing world, Suzanne Sharrock, BGCI

The world’s climate is presently changing more rapidly than at any time in human history. Such climatic changes are intimately connected with plants, which harness the energy of the sun through photosynthesis and maintain ecosystems for all life on earth. According to recent estimates, more than 100,000 plant species are currently threatened with extinction. However, the rate of extinction is expected to increase further as global temperatures continue to rise, and as many as half of the estimated 400,000 plant species in existence today may be under threat.

The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) of the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted by over 180 countries provides a strong basis for ensuring the viability of plant species and their habitats. Climate change is however clearly having a demonstrable impact on plant diversity around the world. Plant distributions are changing, with consequential ecosystem and human welfare impacts. Climate change is altering the seasonal timing of the basic functions of plants. While changes in when a plant flowers and seeds may seem inconsequential, such changes in fact have a cascading effect on insects, birds and entire ecosystems.

Recognising the urgent need for action, Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), together with the Jardin Botanico Canario Veira y Clavijo, convened a meeting of the Gran Canaria Group* in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain on the 10-11th of April 2006. As a result of the meeting the Group formulated “The Gran Canaria Declaration on Climate Change and Plant Conservation”.

The Declaration strongly recommends the preparation of an action plan correlative to the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation on climate change and plants and calls upon governments to take urgent action to increase protection for the world’s plants.

While recognizing that the need for protection of the world’s plant diversity in the wild, the Group also agreed that ex situ collections have a key role to play in securing the conservation of wild plant species as an insurance policy for the future and as support for the adaptation of livelihoods to climate change. Thus botanic gardens have a central role to play in securing the future of our planet in the face of climate change. Existing in almost every country in the world, they are the main custodians of world’s plant diversity and are leading centres for botanical research, horticultural expertise, conservation and sustainable use of plants. Furthermore, with over 200 million visitors annually worldwide, botanic gardens have the capacity to take a lead in heightening public awareness of climate change and plant conservation.

Much work is already on-going. Botanic gardens are involved in major seed-banking initiatives, such as the Millennium Seed Bank of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in the UK (www.kew.org/msbp); many gardens are collecting phonological information and valuable data on the behaviour of plants in a changing world, and in some cases, involving local communities in this monitoring activity – as for example Project BudBurst in the USA (www.budburst.org). Others are launching public awareness campaigns and including climate change in their outreach and education programmes. However, all these efforts will be in vain if the world’s political leaders do not take the necessary action at the global level. It is therefore incumbent on botanic gardens to inform policy and decision makers about the importance and relevance of their work in conservation and sustainable use of plants, to ensure that the necessary steps are taken to conserve the world’s plants and that new national and international laws create an enabling environment for this work.

For copies of the Gran Canaria Declaration, contact BGCI or download a pdf version from www.bgci.org/conservation/climatechange/

* The Gran Canaria Group is an ad hoc group drawn from major national and international organisations, institutions and other bodies involved in biodiversity conservation. The first meeting of a Gran Canaria Group was held in April 2000, a meeting which led ultimately to the development and adoption of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation.