Royal Botanic Gardens programme to preserve tropical plant diversity
Tropical Important Plant Areas (TIPAs)[1] is a programme established by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 2015 in collaboration with Plantlife International, to provide a framework to identify sites important for preserving plant diversity in tropical countries. The programme is based on the Important Plant Areas (IPAs)[2][3][4][5] framework set up by Plantlife International. The IPA criteria[4][6] were modified to take into account the high plant richness, the limited availability of data and the higher dependence on socio-economically important yet native plants for livelihoods in the tropics. The framework acknowledges the practical problems of gathering plant and habitat data in many regions of the world, and it recognises the important role of peer reviewed expert opinion in the selection process.
TIPAs can be identified based on a range of organism groups within the plant and fungal kingdoms, including algae, fungi, lichens, liverworts, mosses, and wild vascular plants.
The TIPAs programme focuses on critical sites for wild plant populations. It aims to identify areas important for the conservation of threatened plants and/or habitats and areas with exceptional plant richness, and to raise awareness of the importance of plant life in tropical countries, encouraging long term conservation of these areas. TIPA sites are selected based on three criteria:
A. Presence of threatened plant species: the site holds significant populations of one or more species that are of global or regional conservation concern.
B. Presence of high botanical richness: the site has an exceptionally rich flora in relation to a particular vegetation type, and/ or contains an exceptional number of species of conservation importance and/or an exceptional number of socially, economically or culturally valuable plant species.
C. Presence of threatened habitats: the site is an outstanding example of a habitat or vegetation type of global, regional or national conservation and botanical importance.
TIPAs are designed to aid national plant and habitat conservation planning through a practical and pragmatic approach. A TIPA is not a legal designation and can be an unprotected site or a site wholly or partially within an existing protected area. TIPAs do not consider land ownership regime and can be of varying size.
The first phase of the Kew TIPA programme runs from 2015-2020 and involves partnerships in seven tropical countries: Bolivia,[5][7] Cameroon,[8] Guinea,[9][10][11][12] Mozambique,[13][14][15] Indonesian New Guinea,[16][17] Uganda, and the British Virgin Islands.[18][19]
^[1] "Tropical Important Plant Areas" Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Retrieved March 2020.
^[2] Plantlife - Important Plant Areas. Retrieved March 2020
^[3] Plantlife - Important Plant Areas International. Retrieved March 2020
^ ab[4] [4] Darbyshire, I., Anderson, S., Asatryan, A. et al. (2017) Important Plant Areas: revised selection criteria for a global approach to plant conservation. Biodivers Conserv 26:1767–1800
^ abPlantlife. (2010). Important Plant Areas around the World: Target 5 of the CBD Global Strategy for Plant Conservation. Salisbury, U.K.
^Plantlife. (2018). Identifying and conserving Important Plant Areas (IPAs) Around the world: A guide for botanists, conservationists, site managers, community groups and policy makers. Salisbury, UK: Plantlife.
^Clegg, R. (2018) The Chiquitiania: Tropical Important Plant Areas in Bolivia. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 30 April 2018.
^Tropical Important Plant Areas Cameroon. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved March 2020.
^Tropical Important Plant Areas Guinea-Conakry. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved March 2020.
^Zones Tropicales Importantes pour les plantes. Herbier National de Guinée. Retrieved March 2020.
^Couch et al. (2019) Threatened Habitats and Tropical Important Plant Areas of Guinea, West Africa. ISBN 9781527240650. Solopress, UK.
^Couch, C. and Larridon, I. (2019) Guarding Guinea’s biodiversity. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 22 October 2019.
^Tropical Important Plant Areas Mozambique. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved March 2020.
^Darbyshire I, Timberlake J, Osborne J. et al (2019) The endemic plants of Mozambique: diversity and conservation status. PhytoKeys 136: 45-96.
^Balancing conservation and livelihoods in the Chimanimani Forest belt, Mozambique. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved March 2020.
^Tropical Important Plant Areas Indonesian New Guinea. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved March 2020.
^Schuiteman, A. (2017) Predicting orchid species richness in New Guinea. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved March 2020.
^Tropical Important Plan Areas British Virgin Islands. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved March 2020.
^The BVI TIPAs National Team. (2019). Identifying and Conserving Tropical Important Plant Areas in the British Virgin Islands (2016-2019): Final Technical Report. (M. Dani Sanchez, C. Clubbe, & M. A. Hamilton, Eds.). Richmond, Surrey, UK: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
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