Native Plant Conservation Campaign News: New Article from Smithsonian Earth Optimism Project Highlights Plant Conservation Success Stories and Offers Hope for the Future

August 30, 2017

 

A new article published in the August edition of the Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden reviews recent global advances and successes in plant conservation. The article also discusses how these achievements help support the goals and targets of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation.

 

The authors, Gary Krupnick and Nancy Knowlton from the Smithsonian Institution, reject the “doom and gloom” that currently dominates the tone of media, environmental groups and scientific reports about the environment and conservation.

 

They assert instead that every recognition or report of an environmental problem should be “coupled with ideas or examples of solutions.” The article describes numerous advancements and solutions to problems that should give us all cause to be more optimistic about plant and ecosystem conservation.

 

They highlight the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation as both an example of and reason for optimism. The historic 2002 agreement by the global community (with the notable exception of the U.S.) to make plant conservation a planet-wide priority through the Convention on Biological Diversity was a tangible advance for plant science and conservation, as well as an extraordinary victory in the fight against plant blindness.

 

Other examples of progress cited in the article include discoveries of new species, rediscoveries of species thought to be extinct, successful species reintroductions to the wild, reclamations of natural areas, plant communities and ecosystems, and the numerous imperiled species that have been saved from extinction by laws and programs such as the U.S. Endangered Species Act and by land and habitat protection by governments and NGOs.

 

The article discusses the Smithsonian Institution’s Earth Optimism initiative which seeks to recognize, replicate and scale up successful conservation actions.

 

To read the article abstract and learn more, click here.