important plant areas in central and eastern europe - hirc.botanic.hr ...

Section 7IPAs and existing legislationand programmesIPA legal statusImportant Plant Areas are not legal site designations. Instead, they provide a frameworkfor identifying the best sites for wild plants, fungi and their habitats using consistentcriteria and sound data. IPAs provide the best available data from the botanical andmycological communities, which is then available to inform national, regional and globalprotection and management schemes, including legally protected areas, site managementplanning, agri-environment schemes, forestry management and general awareness-raisingprojects.IPAs provide an important check on the plant conservation effectiveness of existingsystems of national and international protected area systems, and biodiversityconservation strategies and policies.Although Important Plant Areas are not in themselves legally designated sites they doprovide the framework for signatory governments to fulfil their obligations to meet thetargets of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Global Strategy for PlantConservation (GSPC).Target 5 of the GSPC (Targets 1.4, 1.5 & 2.14 in the European Plant ConservationStrategy) requires signatory governments to ensure the protection of 50% of the mostimportant areas for plants by 2010. IPA projects provide a framework for assessing andreporting on these targets.Principle of compatibility and supportIPAs are not intended to compete with existing programmes and legislation. Instead theyare designed to be compatible with a range of regional and global conservationinitiatives. IPAs can provide essential information for the implementation of nationalconservation programmes, as well as contributing to the implementation of thelegislation and conservation programmes detailed below.NEJC JOGANThe Minister of Environment, Macedonia(FYR), Mr Ljubomir Janer, at the 4th PlantaEuropa Conference, Spain 2004.88