The first State of the World's Plants international symposium was held at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew on May 11-12, 2016. Representatives from the scientific community, policy makers and the public gathered at this science and policy symposium to discuss major issues affecting plant diversity and abundance and to identify emerging issues and knowledge gaps. The first ever State of the World's Plants report was launched at this symposium.

Highlights from the State of the World's Plants report include:

- One in five plants are estimated to be threatened with extinction

- More than 1700 Important Plant Areas (IPAs) have been identified globally but very few are currently protected

- All but one of the world's biomes have seen more than 10% land-cover change in the past decade

- More than 10% of the earth's vegetated surface is highly sensitive to climatic variability

- Almost 5,000 species have been documented as invasive

- Countries in Central and South America are vulnerable to plant diseases and are subjected to little investigation

- Research highlighting the Mediterranean region as a hotspot for the distribution of crop wild relatives (wild plant relatives of key food crops). This research led to the following results: wild relatives of domesticated crops possess genetic diversity useful for developing more productive or resilient crop varieties. Therefore, it is important to have knowledge about their conservation status and accessibility.

The full State of the World's Plants report is available at:

http://science.kew.org/strategic-output/state-worlds-plants

Plantlife and Botanic Gardens Conservation International developed and presented a poster on the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC). The poster highlighted the plant conservation targets and work of the GSPC, and noted areas where greater effort must be focused, such as in-situ conservation, invasive species control and capacity building.

For further information: Ivis Chan

Photo: KEW