Partners Contributing to the 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants

IUCN/Species Survival Commission

IUCN-The World Conservation Union is a union of sovereign states, government agencies and non-governmental organizations. IUCN has three basic conservation objectives: to secure the conservation of nature, and especially of biological diversity, as an essential foundation for the future; to ensure that where the earth’s natural resources are used this is done in a wise, equitable and sustainable way; and to guide the development of human communities towards ways of life that are both of good quality and in enduring harmony with other components of the biosphere.

The Species Survival Commission (SSC) is the largest of IUCN’s six volunteer Commissions. SSC’s mission is to conserve biological diversity by developing and executing programs to study, save, restore, and manage wisely species and their habitats. The SSC network encompasses 7,000 volunteer member scientists, field researchers, government officials and conservation leaders from nearly every country in the world. SSC, through the efforts of its volunteers, is positioned to provide fundamental information on the status of biodiversity, disseminating knowledge on the plant and animal species which comprise ecosystems and contribute to their function. SSC provides vital information about the nature and extent of threats to species, their conservation status, and their ecological and socioeconomic relevance.

SSC works primarily through its more than 100 Specialist Groups, most of which represent particular plant or animal groups that are threatened with extinction, or are of special importance to human welfare. A few groups deal with cross-cutting species conservation issues, such as veterinary medicine, conservation breeding, re-introducing species into their former ranges, invasive species and sustainable use of wildlife.

WCMC – World Conservation Monitoring Centre

The World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC), based in Cambridge, UK, is a joint-venture between the three partners in the World Conservation Strategy and its successor Caring for the Earth: IUCN – The World Conservation Union, UNEP – United Nations Environment Programme and WWF – World Wide Fund For Nature. The Centre provides information services on the conservation and sustainable use of species and ecosystems and supports others in the development of their own information systems.

WCMC has developed global overview databases that include threatened plant and animal species, habitats of conservation concern, critical sites, protected areas of the world, and the utilisation of and trade in wildlife species and products. Drawing on these databases, WCMC provides an information service to the conservation and development communities, governments and the United Nations agencies, scientific institutions, the business and commercial sector, and the media. WCMC produces a wide variety of specialist outputs and reports based upon analyses of data integrated from many sources. It is also actively involved, particularly in developing countries, in building the capacities of other institutions for promoting and planning the conservation and sustainable use of their own biological resources.

The Nature Conservancy

The Nature Conservancy is an international non-governmental organization dedicated exclusively to biodiversity protection. With more than 900,000 members, the Conservancy owns and manages over 1,600 reserves, the largest private system of nature sanctuaries in the world. Internationally the Conservancy works to support in-country organizations and agencies that share its focus on the protection of biological diversity. The Conservancy has helped establish a network of Natural Heritage Programs and Conservation Data Centers, based in state and national agencies and private organizations throughout the United States, Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Together with this network of data centers, the Conservancy develops and maintains biodiversity databases for use in informing conservation and development activities. The conservation status and geographic distribution of many western hemisphere plants have been assessed and documented by this multi-institutional effort, including a comprehensive listing of threatened plants of the United States and Canada. This western hemisphere data set forms a major contribution to the 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants.

The Association for Biodiversity Information

The Association for Biodiversity Information (ABI) was established in 1994 to advance the goals of Natural Heritage Programs, Conservation Data Centers and associated organizations whose mission is to provide information on the distribution, abundance, and conservation needs of rare species and natural communities. ABI seeks to assist its members to operate as a network by sharing technologies, facilitating the exchange of knowledge and experiences, and facilitating the development of multijurisdictional information products and services. Most Natural Heritage data centers that provided state-level U.S. conservation status assessments as part of The Nature Conservancy’s contribution to this volume are constituent members of ABI.

National Botanical Institute (NBI), South Africa

The mission of the NBI is to promote the sustainable use, conservation, appreciation and enjoyment of the exceptionally rich plant life of South Africa, for the benefit of all its people. The NBI grows more than 10,000 indigenous plant species in eight National Botanical Gardens, located country-wide, providing an exceptional amenity and educational focus for local and overseas visitors alike. The research activities of the Institute, which focus on the systematics, ecology, conservation, ethnobotany and horticulture of southern Africa’s plants, are conducted from three research centres. These centres include three herbaria which together house 1.8 million specimens. The Institute also develops and maintains databases on plant diversity for use in conservation and development activities.

Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution, founded in 1846 by an Act of Congress, counts among its most important missions the discovery, identification and understanding of the natural world around us. Personnel and research support for the North America, Middle America and South America sections of the 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants were provided by the Department of Botany, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution with support from other sources. Its cadre of research scientists, which includes a large number of biologists specialising in taxonomy, systematics and evolutionary studies, is contributing to the global inventory of species and to the revision of our view of natural systems. The production of the data for this volume is but one of the efforts to provide accurate information for the use of resource managers and planners and as an educational tool for future generations.

Wildlife Australia

Wildlife Australia deals with wildlife issues that were formerly the concern of the Australian National Parks and Wildlife. It manages or co-manages with the Aboriginal traditional owners seventeen parks, reserves and other land and marine protected areas. Nature reserves, marine parks and botanic gardens, including the Australian National Botanic Garden, are also managed by Wildlife Australia. In areas of Australia’s Commonwealth responsibility, Wildlife Australia manages endangered species and marine wildlife. International agreements to which Australia is a party and which are administered under the aegis of Wildlife Australia cover the regulation of whaling, trade in endangered species, protection of migratory and endangered species, and the conservation of nature in the South Pacific. Wildlife Australia is part of Environment Australia which incorporates the environment programmes of the Australian Department of Environment, Sport and Territories, and supports scientific research to document Australia’s flora and fauna.

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Founded in 1670 as a Physic Garden in Scotland’s capital city, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) is one of the oldest botanic gardens in the world and is, after Oxford, the second oldest in the United Kingdom. In the ensuing 327 years, it has become one of the world’s major botanic gardens, with extensive research, conservation, and education programmes spanning the globe. Today the institution encompasses four gardens across Scotland, each affording distinct conditions for the cultivation of plants, and together attracting up to 1 million visitors each year.

RBGE is primarily a research institution devoted to the study of plants and fungi. Its world-famous living collections (58,000 accessions representing 21,000 taxa – 6% of the world’s known vascular plants), herbarium (2 million specimens), and library (300,000 books, journals, illustrations and archives) underpin the Garden’s research programme in taxonomy (both monographic and floristic), horticulture, molecular systematics, genetic conservation, and both phanerogamic and cryptogamic biodiversity studies; these well documented living and herbarium collections serve as biological standards, and provide the taxonomic framework to enable publications such as this to be produced.

RBGE grows 1,386 species (581 genera, 152 families) of threatened plants listed in this book, including 13 that are extinct in the wild, and is discovering the horticultural and ecological parameters under which they grow, with the eventual aim of re-introduction and re-establishment when appropriate.

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

The mission of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is to ensure better management of the Earth’s environment by increasing knowledge and understanding of the plant kingdom. The Kew Herbarium is one of the world’s largest and houses an encyclopaedic collection of over six million specimens of vascular plants and fungi from every country in the world. The Jodrell Laboratory carries out fundamental research in plant biochemistry, physiology, anatomy, cytology and molecular systematics. The library, with its collection of over 750,000 books and journals is a resource for all of Kew’s research work. The living collections are the world’s largest with 79,600 accessions representing 35,900 species; one in ten of all vascular plants. In addition Kew has the largest seed bank of wild plants containing over 4,000 species.

NYBG – The New York Botanical Garden

An international leader in botanical research, The New York Botanical Garden is at the forefront of the battle to preserve the world’s plant life. Since 1891 its scientists have conducted over 1,000 research expeditions worldwide to discover and document plants. Today it operates one of the world’s most active research programs in systematic and economic botany. NYBG’s staff of more than 100 researchers and technicians, including Ph.D. botanists, concentrates on exploring tropical regions where plant diversity is rapidly vanishing. The institution is also active in training the next generation of botanists through graduate programs here and field research abroad.