Posted on 01 June 2011
An international conservation project has
brought together botanists and scientists
from Middle East and North Africa – Algeria,
Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco,
Occupied Palestinian Territories, Syria
and Tunisia – in an unprecedented bid to
secure the future of the region’s wildlife.
A new report published today by IUCN, Plantlife
and WWF – Important Plant Areas of the south
and east Mediterranean region: Priority
sites for conservation – shows that
there are more than 200 internationally
significant areas for wild plants in the
region, rivalling those found elsewhere
in Europe and Asia for species richness,
and supporting an extraordinary range of
wildlife.
In many of these countries,
these species-rich landscapes also provide
vital resources for local livelihoods.
• 207 Important Plant Areas (IPAs) are listed
in the report for the first time, including
33 in Syria, 20 in Lebanon,20 in Egypt,
21 in Algeria, 13 in Tunisia and 5 in Libya.
• Teams from 11 countries
around the south and east Mediterranean
were involved in the partnership project,
meeting at workshops to discuss results
and work together to carry out a rapid assessment
of wild plants and wildlife-rich areas across
the region.
• 75% of the 207 IPAs contain locally endemic
species i.e. species that grow only in one
country or area.
• ‘Mega endemic sites’ (containing more
than 20 species restricted to small geographical
areas) were identified in Algeria, Morocco,
Lebanon, Syria and Libya, meaning that they
are extraordinarily rich in their diversity
of wild flowers and other plants.
The report is the result of unprecedented
cooperation between botanists and scientists
from participating countries.
The data collated fills
gaps in the knowledge available about the
Mediterranean’s important areas for wild
plants and their habitats including forests,
and can serve as a tool for governments
and regional conventions to focus conservation
work on the priority areas for conservation.
Many of these countries
are in the midst of political instability
and conflict, but in the long term natural
resources and wildlife areas will continue
to be vital for the health, livelihoods
and general wellbeing of local people.
Al Jabel Al Akhdar is an Important Plant
Area situated close to the town of Benghazi.
It is the richest place for wild plants
in Libya with 1,400 species, and is also
Libya’s most important region for growing
cereals, fruit and vegetables.
Half of Libya’s endemic
plants grow only here. Similar unique sites
with large numbers of endemic plant species
exist in Syria, Lebanon and Morocco and
some of these are critical in providing
income for the local people.
The main threats to
the region’s IPAs include overgrazing (67%
of sites are affected), deforestation, tourist
development, intensive arable farming and
unsustainable collection of plants for medicine
and culinary uses.
In future, the partners
will continue to provide support for botanists,
conservationists and local IPA communities
across the region so that these botanical
and wildlife hotspots can be secured and
managed for future generations to use and
enjoy.
The project - led by IUCN, Plantlife and
WWF and funded by the French Development
Agency through the Critical Ecosystem Partnership
Fund - aims to take the first steps to conserving
this wealth of natural riches.
For more information
and images, please contact:
Gemma Parkes, WWF Mediterranean Communications
T + 39 346 387 32 37 / E gparkes@wwf.panda.org
Notes
1. The report - ‘Important Plant Areas of
the south and east Mediterranean region:
priority sites for conservation’ (eds E.
A. Radford, G. Catullo and B. de Montmollin)
is available to download from the websites
of IUCN http://www.iucn.org/dbtw-wpd/edocs/2011-014.pdf,
WWF or from the Plantlife www.plantlife.org.uk/publications/IPA-SEMed.
2. Plantlife is the organisation speaking
up for the nation’s wild plants. We work
hard to protect wild plants on the ground
and to build understanding of the vital
role they play in everyone’s lives. Plantlife
carries out practical conservation work,
manages nature reserves, influences policy
and legislation, runs events and activities
that connect people with their local wild
plants and works with others to promote
the conservation of wild plants for the
benefit of all. For more information, go
to www.plantlife.org.uk.
3. IUCN, the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature, helps the world
find pragmatic solutions to our most pressing
environmental and development challenges.
IUCN is the world’s oldest and largest global
environmental organisation, with more than
1,000 government and NGO members and almost
11,000 volunteer experts in some 160 countries.
The IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation,
established in Malaga in 2000, reunites
more than 170 IUCN member organizations
in the region around a common programme
of work dedicated to influence, encourage
and assist Mediterranean societies to conserve
nature and sensibly use its resources towards
human development. The IUCN Species Survival
Commission (SSC) is a science-based network
of some 7,500 volunteer experts from almost
every country of the world, all working
together towards achieving the vision of
“a world that values and conserves present
levels of biodiversity." There is an
active specialist group working on Mediterranean
island plants. For more information, go
to www.iucn.org/mediterranean.
4. WWF’s mission is
to stop the degradation of the earth’s natural
environment and to build a future in which
humans live in harmony with nature, by conserving
the world’s biological diversity, ensuring
that the use of renewable natural resources
is sustainable, and promoting the reduction
of pollution and wasteful consumption. The
network of WWF's Mediterranean offices has
joined forces to launch the Mediterranean
Initiative, a conservation strategy pursuing
four major goals: build a future for Mediterranean
landscapes; secure Mediterranean water resources;
generate a sea change in Mediterranean marine
management; equip Mediterranean ecosystems
to adapt to climate change. Both WWF Mediterranean
and WWF Italy contribute to this initiative.
For more information, go to http://mediterranean.panda.org/
and www.wwf.it
5. Plant diversity and threats to IPAs in
the Mediterranean - Approximately 10% of
the world’s flowering plants – around 25,000
wild plant species – are found in the Mediterranean
basin, on less than 2% of the earth’s surface.
(The UK – as a contrast - has around 1500
native flowering plant species).
6. This project contributes
to activities within the International Year
of Forests, during which governments and
civil society are encouraged to action for
the preservation of the Mediterranean forests
and the areas where they occur.
7. The report will also be available in
French and Arabic.
