Plant Conservation Year in Review
2015
 
2015 was an historic year for plant conservation in the United States – and for the Native Plant Conservation Campaign!

The Native Plant Conservation Campaign celebrated several milestones:

Preference for Local Native Plant Materials is Now Federal Policy!
Years of advocacy by botanists and conservation advocates has borne fruit. In 2015, historic new initiatives mandated new federal policy that locally appropriate native plants be used in a wide range of land management activities, including restoration, rehabilitation, and pollinator habitat management:
 
The goal of these strategies is to manage, restore, and rehabilitate diverse, healthy and resilient plant communities that can withstand climate change and continue to supply the ecosystem services that are essential to life.
 
***This is the first time that any nation has adopted such a policy or implemented these types of strategies to use local native plants for ecosystem management!***

Botanical Sciences and Native Plant Materials Research, Restoration and Promotion Act of 2016
This bill, developed this year in collaboration with the Plant Conservation Alliance Non-federal Cooperators, would:

Endangered Species Act Intact for Now --  thanks to YOU!
The NPCC renewed our longstanding collaboration with the Endangered Species Coalition to help build a unified campaign to defend the federal Endangered Species Act against unprecedented attacks in Congress.

Ecosystem Services Value Must Now be Evaluated in Federal Plans!
In October, after years of effort by the scientific and conservation communities, the White House released a memorandum directing all Federal agencies to incorporate the value of natural infrastructure (aka natural capital or native plant communities) and ecosystem services into Federal planning and decision making. Agencies will develop policies that promote consideration of ecosystem services in planning, investment, and regulatory actions.
 
Ecosystem services include water purification, storm protection, pollinator habitat, soil fertility, flood control, pest control, and climate change mitigation. For more information, see NPCC News and the NPCC Ecosystem Services page
 
 
Check out additional plant conservation milestones in the NPCC News Archives. 
 
Thank you for all your hard work, and we look forward to working with you to build on this in 2016.
 
Emily