Introduction to Important Plant Areas (IPAs)

Common Knapweed
Centaurea scabiosa

©Steve Day/Plantlife

Important Plant Areas (IPAs) are the best sites for wild plants and fungi. They provide the framework for the implementation of Target 5 of the Convention on Biological Diversity's Global Strategy for Plant Conservation. Target 5 aims for " protection of 50% of the world's most important areas for plant diversity assured by 2010."

The work on IPAs in Europe also contributes to the European Plant Conservation Strategy which lists the production of an inventory of IPAs in Europe by 2007 amongst its targets.

IPAs are not legal site designations but are a framework for identifying and highlighting the very best sites for plants and fungi, which can be used to support conservation actions and initiatives. IPAs also provide a unique opportunity to consider the best sites for plants and/or fungi in a broader context, and facilitate the development of landscape scale approaches to conservation that buffer the 'core' of the IPA and address habitat fragmentation.

The selection of sites follows international and regional guidelines to ensure consistency and is based on three criteria: threatened species, species richness/diversity and threatened habitats.

Plantlife International is coordinating the Important Plant Areas programme in Europe, and is lead partner with IUCN - The World Conservation Union for coordinating target 5 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation. The aim of the IPA programme is to identify and protect a network of the best sites for wild plants, fungi and their habitats around the world and to ensure their long term survival.

The programme is based on the highly successful Important Bird Areas project, which has identified, to date, over 3000 sites across Europe, and has provided much needed information and action on threat status and site protection.

Identifying IPAs provides easily accessible information on the locations of, and threats to, the best sites for wild plants and their habitats. This information can then be used to ensure that specialists, conservation stakeholders and decision makers have accurate, sound data on which to prioritise national and international conservation projects.

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Important Plant Areas around the world

There is rapidly increasing interest being generated around the world in Plantlife International’s IPA programme and Plantlife works proactively to promote and develop the concept worldwide. In September 2003 at the IUCN World Parks Congress, botanists and conservationists from over 100 countries, across all continents, expressed an interest in developing IPA programs, and five Important Plant Area project development workshops have subsequently taken place in Lebanon, New Zealand, Bangkok (for ten countries in the ASEAN region), South Africa (for ten countries in southern Africa) and Morocco.

The focus of the Global IPA programme is to develop and test models for identification and protection of IPAs in representative countries which can then act as catalysts for regional rollout of the IPA process.

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The development of a toolkit which enables a process-based approach to identifying and protecting Important Plant Areas is key in delivering this objective. The IPA programme will be further strengthened by the development of a global IPA database which is easily accessible and accommodates national and regional variation without compromising the overall integrity of the database. It is anticipated that once fully operational the database will provide a powerful tool for conservation priority setting for policy and decision-makers at national, regional and global levels.

Plantlife International also places significant emphasis on supporting third party efforts to identify and protect Important Plant Areas wherever requested (e.g. through provision of resources, technical inputs, training in use of the IPA database, facilitating workshops, etc).

The mainstreaming of IPAs into the wider conservation agenda is critical for their long term sustainable protection. Plantlife International is currently working with its partners to promote the IPA process within biodiversity conservation methodologies and approaches (e.g. Key Biodiversity Areas, integrated ecosystem management, landscape-scale conservation) and integrate the IPA process into existing and proposed biodiversity conservation projects.

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