Friday, April 03, 2009

Plant Conservation Report

HOORC's Natural Collections facility is hosting a visit today by students from the Botswana Wildlife Training Institute, who have come to see how plant specimens are collected, preserved and organized in the Pete Smith Herbarium.

The Plant Conservation Report, published this year by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Secretariat and the Global Partnership for Plant Conservation reviews progress in implementing the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, adopted in 2002 by the sixth Conference of the Parties to the CBD. The report says that two thirds of the world’s plant species, a vital component of biodiversity and healthy ecosystems, are in danger of extinction with pressure from the growing human population, habitat modification and deforestation, over-exploitation, spread of invasive alien species, pollution and the growing impacts of climate change. You can find the document online.

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