| Abstract Detail
Plenary Symposium: Protecting the Diversity of Plants Raven, Peter H. [1]. Global Plant Conservation: Where Are We, and Where are We Headed? For the most part, plant conservation did not become an issue of worldwide concern until the mid-1960s; although specific extinction and extirpation events were recorded before that time, it took the combined news of explosive population growth, rapidly rising rates of consumption, and the increasingly evident negative effects of many technologies to take the problem seriously. By the 1970s, major conservation organizations were starting to worry about plants, although keeping the preservation of mammals and birds as their overwhelmingly major objective. The cause of plant conservation was given a boost with the organization of BGCI, and has gradually gained in importance subsequently. Botanical garden networks, such as the explicitly goal-driven CPC in the United States, have helped gardens to sharpen and focus their efforts on ex situ conservation; more than a third of the approximately 300,000 recognized species of vascular plants are estimated to be held in seed banks and botanical gardens. With the adoption of a World Plant Conservation Strategy under the aegis of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the process has been accelerated in the first decade of this century. Global warming, however, poses an unanticipated and serious threat.
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1 - Missouri Botanical Garden, Po Box 299, St Louis, Missouri, 63166-0299, USA
Keywords:
none specified
Presentation Type: Symposium or Colloquium Presentation
Session: SY06
Location: International Ballroom/Hilton
Date: Wednesday, July 11th, 2007
Time: 8:45 AM
Number: SY06002
Abstract ID:2315 |
