European Red List of Vascular Plants - European Commission

the Bern Convention, CITES or the EU Wildlife Trade
regulation. It is notable that very few CWR of important
food crops are listed in the Habitats Directive annexes
– a strong indication that in situ CWR conservation of
the most important groups is still not being adequately
addressed (Kell et al. 2008a).
In coming years, the EU’s Water Framework Directive,
adopted in 2000, is expected to become a major driver
for achieving sustainable water management throughout
Europe. It requires that all inland and coastal waters within
defined river basins shall reach a good ecological status by
2015 (i.e. that they have the biological community that
would be expected in conditions of minimal anthropogenic
impact). The directive includes requirements for increased
monitoring of aquatic ecology by the EU Member States,
and improved protection and recovery of European
waterways. In particular, Member States are expected to
tackle any remaining water pollution problems. It deals
with surface and groundwater quality and quantity, and
aims to enforce sustainable levels of water abstraction.
As such, the Water Framework Directive is an important
complement to the EU Habitats Directive requirements
for direct species and habitats protection.
6.5 Conservation management of vascular
plants in the EU
The EU’s LIFE+ programme offers financial support for
species and habitats conservation projects throughout the
EU. In particular, LIFE+ supports the implementation of
the Birds and Habitats Directives and the establishment
of the Natura 2000 network. Projects involve a variety
of actions including habitat restoration, site purchases,
communication and awareness-raising, protected area
infrastructure and conservation planning. LIFE is the
EU’s financial instrument supporting environmental
and nature conservation projects throughout the EU as
well as in some candidate, acceding and neighbouring
countries.
Since 1992, LIFE has co-financed over 3,115 projects
with a total budget of over €2 billion. According to the
LIFE project database 18 , 90 LIFE Nature projects have
implemented concrete conservation actions targeting
vascular plant species in the EU. The majority of these
projects are aimed at habitat or site level restoration and
conservation, although 10 are species specific projects,
targeting 23 species of which 12 are threatened (e.g. Abies
nebrodensis or Viola hispida).
Regarding the establishment of protected areas for vascular
plant conservation, the identification of Important Plant
Areas (IPAs) 19 plays an important role. Whilst the role of
IPAs is obviously more important for countries outside of
the EU, IPA data can also provide valuable information
for priority setting for site conservation inside the EU 27,
either by pointing out existing gaps in the current Natura
2000 network of sites (for plant species listed in Annex
II of the EU Habitats Directive), or by identifying sites
for threatened plant species not listed in Annex II of the
EU Habitats Directive. Currently, 1,771 IPAs have been
identified in 16 countries of Europe, 10 of which EU
Member states (Plantlife International 2010). One of the
criteria for identifying an IPA is the presence of globally
or regionally threatened species (Andersson 2002) and
the IUCN Global Red List as well as the European Red
List are excellent references for this criterion.
Plant Micro-reserves (PMRs) are another valuable tool for
conserving small populations with restricted ranges and
several hundred such micro-reserves have already been
set up in the EU to date (Planta Europa 2008), notably
through several LIFE and LIFE+ projects.
A significant proportion of Europe’s CWR are undoubtedly
found in the extensive protected area network (Maxted
et al. 2000); however, the conservation focus is usually
on conserving rare and/or threatened species or the
habitat itself, not on conserving the CWR or other target
species found at the site (Hoyt 1988, Maxted et al. 2000,
Cooper et al. 2001). Therefore, environmental trends
affecting CWR populations are probably not being
recorded and the necessary management measures are
not being adopted (Maxted 2003). The need for active
in situ management of CWR genetic diversity has been
recognized and promoted for more than four decades (Jain
1975, Williams 1991, Maxted et al. 1997b, Heywood
et al. 2008, Iriondo et al. 2008); however, in practical
terms, relatively little has been achieved until recently,
both within Europe and globally (Maxted et al. 2008a,
Iriondo et al. 2008, Maxted and Kell 2009, Maxted et
al. 2010, Hunter and Heywood 2011). The concept
of genetic reserves was first proposed by Maxted et al.
(1997b) who defined genetic reserve conservation as “the
location, management and monitoring of genetic diversity
18 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/project/Projects/index.cfm, accessed on 2 August 2011
19 IPAs are natural or semi-natural sites exhibiting exceptional botanical richness and/or supporting an outstanding assemblage of rare, threatened and/or
endemic plant species and/or vegetation of high botanical value (Plantlife International 2004).
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