Alan Tye is currently Head of the Botany Department at the Charles Darwin Research Station, Galapagos, Ecuador. His research interests extend to conservation biology; ecology, systematics and conservation of threatened plants; invasive plant ecology; evolution on islands; and bird behavioral ecology. He has found that much of the work undertaken by the Galapagos Plant Specialist Group corresponds nicely with the botanical program of the Charles Darwin Research Station. This includes a baseline survey focused on endemic and threatened plants, longterm monitoring of threatened species and communities, prioritization (using the Red List among other tools), studies of priority taxa (mostly those that are Critically Endangered) and experimental management in the form of protection and restoration projects.

These programs are used to guide management decisions taken by the Galapagos National Park. However, an added value of having the Galapagos Plant Specialist Group present is the Red List authority provided, whose assessments are based on the information that is acquired from these programs. Aside from the big conservation challenges of reversing declines and improving the status of species, which are the continuous jobs of the Research Station Botany Department, a specific challenge for the next few years is to broaden its program to include non-vascular plants. To that end the Station has employed a non-vascular plant specialist and is collaborating with others, in the hope of getting Galapagos endemic lichens, mosses and liverworts, and marine algae assessed for the IUCN Red List in the next two to three years