Native Plant Conservation Campaign News: New Mexico Rare Plant Conservation Strategy, Rare Plant Scorecard and Important Plant Areas Released for Earth Day!
April 25, 2017
The New Mexico Rare Plant Conservation Strategy was released for Earth Day, 2017. The overall goal of the New Mexico Rare Plant Conservation Strategy is to protect and conserve New Mexico’s rare and endangered plant species and their habitats through collaborative partnerships between stakeholders and interested parties to aid and improve the conservation and management of rare plant species and to avoid federal listing.
The Strategy is focused on 235 rare and endangered plant species in New Mexico, including 109 species that only occur in New Mexico and nowhere else in the world.
The Strategy presents methods for identifying Important Plant Areas and for developing a Rare Plant Scorecard. A Rare Plant Scorecard identifies those plant species which are of greatest conservation concern and proposes plans for their recovery (taxonomic studies, monitoring, surveys, habitat protection, etc.). The New Mexico Scorecard can be sorted in many ways to help focusing the number of species a land manager might want to address.
The Strategy is an integral part of the State of New Mexico’s Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department, Forestry Division’s Forest Action Plan, which identifies natural resource conditions, needs and opportunities across all land ownerships in the state and guides long-term management. The Division is a major partner in rare and endangered plant conservation, recovery and research through its Endangered Plant Program. It is the only program within the state government that focuses on rare plant conservation and operates statewide.
