TIME is running out if we are going to prevent climate change leading to a mass extinction of plants, an international group of botanists warned this week.
The Gran Canaria Group, whose members include major biodiversity conservation organisations and botanical gardens, says 1 in 4 of Earth鈥檚 40,000 plant species are already on the brink. Environments are changing faster than plants can migrate, and this could cause half of Europe鈥檚 plant species to be lost in the next 80 years. A worldwide action plan is urgently needed to avert an 鈥渋mpending crisis鈥�, the group says.
A Global Strategy for Plant Conservation was adopted in 2002 by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, following recommendations of the Gran Canaria Group in 2000. Yet despite being just four years old, the UN declaration is already out of date because climate models have leapt ahead, says Suzanne Sharrock of the UK-based campaigning group Botanic Gardens Conservation International in Richmond, Surrey. 鈥淲e can now make predictions that we couldn鈥檛 just a few years ago,鈥� she says.
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The proposed new strategy announced this week under the title Gran Canaria Declaration II calls for comprehensive audits to identify key threatened species, along with the development of more detailed models to help identify the species most likely to be threatened as the world warms. One recent model predicted that a quarter of all potato, peanut and cowpea species could become extinct by 2055, as half of the land suitable for their cultivation disappears. The impact of this on humans could be huge, says Annie Lane of the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute in Rome, Italy.
鈥淓nvironments are changing faster than plants can migrate, and this could cause half of Europe鈥檚 species to be lost鈥�
Also at risk are mountain species, Sharrock says, as they 鈥渉aven鈥檛 got anywhere to go鈥�. As temperatures rise, plants such as the giant lobelia (Lobelia bambuseti) which is found only on Mount Kenya, are forced ever higher until they reach the summit and the ground runs out.
The declaration also highlights the importance of employing natural vegetation in conservation efforts such as water management and carbon offsetting, and for coastal management. Paul Smith of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in London says the declaration is also a call to arms for the botanical gardens of the world, which play an important role in banking seeds as an insurance policy, and in education.
