Last month at the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP11) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the world’s governments agreed to increase funding in support of actions to halt the rate of biodiversity loss.

Developed countries agreed to double funding to support efforts in developing states towards meeting the internationally-agreed Biodiversity Targets (see Aichi Biodiversity Targets set to be achieved globally within the next eight years), and the main goals of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020.

Target 12: By 2020 the extinction of known threatened species has been prevented and their conservation status, particularly of those most in decline, has been improved and sustained.

Target 13: By 2020, the genetic diversity of cultivated plants and farmed and domesticated animals and of wild relatives, including other socio-economically as well as culturally valuable species, is maintained, and strategies have been developed and implemented for minimizing genetic erosion and safeguarding their genetic diversity. 

The above targets have a particular relevance for plant conservation. Globally, one in five plant species is under threat of extinction and many more are near threatened (Kew, 2010). While up to 63% of all threatened (plant) species are found in the tropics (due to high plant diversity), most species found in Europe have widespread distributions and are not threatened; however, on a local scale ongoing changes in land use still threaten many habitats. The impact of habitat destruction and collection for the horticultural trade, for instance, has already reduced the European populations of the Common snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis), undeniably the most popular of all cultivated bulbous plants, which is now rated as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

A recent study, conducted by Kew, the Natural History Museum and the IUCN, found that gymnosperms (i.e. the plant group including conifers and cycads) are the most endangered of all plant groups (Kew, 2010). Indeed, the continuing survival of Wood's Cycad (Encephalartos woodii), known as one of the world’s rarest plants, is a good example of the value of plant conservation for the preservation of biodiversity.