Understanding and Documenting Plant Diversity

Achievements

Botanic gardens are making major contributions to our knowledge of plant diversity, through research in areas such as taxonomy, genetic diversity, conservation and restoration ecology.
Technological advances are allowing botanic gardens to be more productive and data efficient and are facilitating the management and exchange of information.

Challenges

Preliminary assessment of the conservation status remains incomplete for most taxa.

The quality of plant-related information of botanic garden collections is often poor or incomplete.

The integration and sharing of plant-related information between institutions is limited.

The potential of new technologies to manage data is often not realised due to institutional constraints.

Recommendations

Wider participation at the national level is encouraged in the preparation of the world plant list.

To address the immediacy for conservation action for some species, a pragmatic approach should be adopted to identify and define threatened species.

Research and information exchange on the impacts of climate change is required in order to develop models to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Databases should be strengthened to facilitate access to comprehensive information on plants, including location in collections and active conservation programmes.

Challenges in Botanical Research and Climate Change

The 2nd World Botanic Gardens Scientific Congresswill be held in Delft, the Netherlands, on 29 June - 4 July 2008. The main themes are Conservation and Climate Change, Bionics, New Systematics and Future Issues. Registration for those wishing to contribute a paper is 15 December

Taxonomy and Plant Conservation

BGCI's Etelka Leadlay tells how good taxonomy is essential to successful plant conservation. This book is a key guide to anyone working in this field.

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