Global IPA programme

Plantlife International is lead partner with IUCN - The World Conservation Union for coordinating target 5 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation . Target 5's aim is the "protection of 50% of the world's most important areas for plant diversity assured by 2010."

The Global IPA Programme’s key objectives are:

• The development of a global toolkit for IPA identification, protection and management

• Developing a global IPA database

• Implementing a global IPA programme in several world regions

• Working in partnership with other key biodiversity organisations

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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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