MANY of the habitats crucial for endangered plants in eastern Europe are inadequately managed, and nearly a quarter are completely unprotected, according to the first-ever international survey of important plant habitats.
At the behest of conservation charity Plantlife International, hundreds of botanists surveyed seven eastern European countries, Belarus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, to identify areas important for plant conservation. They selected spots on the basis of particularly high plant diversity, large numbers of threatened species, or because the habitat type itself was under threat.
Of 796 important areas identified, 170 have no legal protection and are therefore vulnerable to forestry, tourism, intensive agriculture and development, says the study, which was due to be released on 2 June. Many of the others are only partly protected or suffer from lack of funding or trained personnel.
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The survey is the first step in what is intended to be a global assessment of plant diversity under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. It is likely that many important plant habitats on other continents are in similar straits, says Jane Smart, head of the Species Programme at the IUCN, the World Conservation Union, in Switzerland.
