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National Botanic Garden of Belgium conducting global plant reintroductions survey
27th April 2009

The National Botanic Garden of Belgium (NBGB) is conducting a survey about plant species reintroductions in the world.

Data held in the IUCN Re-introduction Practitioners Directory and other publications has enabled NBGB to realise that many scientific institutions are dealing with the reintroduction of endangered plant species in the wild. However, to date there has been little effort to report reintroduction trials in plant species.

As reintroduction is recognised as a relatively high-risk, high-cost activity, disseminating information concerning reintroduction experiments is important to provide examples and case studies to define and update common standards and methodologies. However, case studies, best practice and experiences of reintroduction are not sufficiently illustrated to the plant conservation community, and they most often remain in grey literature, being not frequently published in the scientific literature.

Target 8 of the GSPC highlights the importance of recovery and restoration programmes for conservation. Therefore, this survey will assess the conservation value of plant species reintroduction trials by principally looking at the methods used and the results obtained from these reintroduction experiments.

NBGB understands that some reintroduction programmes might still be in their infancy, but would still encourage your participation -  you may have useful experience regardless of the reintroduction results. If you are not personally involved, please forward this survey to the person dealing with reintroductions within your institution.

The broad aims of the NBGB approach are to:

1. aid recognition of reintroduction protocols with best conservation value.
2. encourage good practice in documentation, propagation, release and monitoring.
3. promote collaboration between institutions that undertake species reintroduction programmes.

To take part in the survey plese complete the requested data fields of this questionnaire and return it, ideally by e-mail, to sandrine.godefroid@br.fgov.be (one form per species; please duplicate in case of several species).

You can also contact Sandrine with any further questions.

NBGB anticipates that this will be the first step towards a global assessment of reintroduction experiments, aid conservation and value your cooperation. In isolation these reintroduction experiments may have somewhat limited value, but by working together we could help better safeguard endangered species.

FAQ

Who will see my data?
Data concerning specific reintroduction experiments will be treated in the strictest confidentiality, meaning that respondent cannot be identified in the analysis output (anonymity will be fully preserved).

How should I fill in the form?
For your convenience, most questions are multiple choices. In that case, you only need to tick the right answer (e.g. put a “X” in the right box). Sometimes, the question requires giving a figure or a word of explanation.

Should I answer all the questions?
Not necessarily. If you don’t have the data needed to answer a question, then answer "I don’t know" or "no", rather than leaving the box blank, so that we can correctly interpret your answer.

Can I send you a file with our data instead of filling in the form?
Yes, but please make sure that it provides as much of the requested information as possible.

What’s in it for me?
All respondents will be kept fully informed about the study. A report containing the results of the survey will be distributed by email to all respondents.

When is the deadline?
Ideally as soon as possible, however 1st June 2009 is the absolute deadline.

 

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