The first State of the World's Plants international symposium was held at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew on 11 and 12 May, 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 currently have conservation protection

- 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 demonstrates high sensitivity to climatic variability

- Almost 5,000 species have been documented as invasive

- Countries in Central and South American are vulnerable to plant disease yet are currently subject to little research

- Research highlighting the Mediterranean region as a hotspot for the distribution of crop wild relatives (wild plant relatives of key food crops). The wild relatives of domesticated crops possess genetic diversity useful for developing more productive or resilient crop varieties1. 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 also 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