Plants are universally recognised as a vital component of
the world’s biological diversity and an essential resource
for ecosystem functioning – goods and services. Additionally,
plants have great economic and cultural importance.
Plants play a key role in maintaining the planet’s basic
environmental balance, ensuring ecosystem stability, and
they form an irreplaceable component of the habitats for
the world’s animal life.
Of urgent concern is the fact that many plant species,
communities and their ecological interactions, including
the many relationships between plant species and human
communities and cultures, are in danger of extinction,
threatened by such human-induced factors as, inter alia,
habitat loss and transformation, over-exploitation, pollution,
clearing for development activities, alien invasive
species and climate change. If this loss is not stemmed,
countless opportunities to develop new solutions to pressing
economic, social, health and industrial problems will
be equally lost. Furthermore, plant diversity is of special
concern to indigenous and local communities, and these
communities have a vital role to play in addressing the loss
of plant diversity.
South Africa is proud to honour its commitment to the
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) by developing
this Strategy for Plant Conservation, which aligns with the
CBD-endorsed Global Strategy for Plant Conservation
(GSPC).
In 2010, South Africa, along with all Parties to the CBD, endorsed
an updated version of the Global Strategy for Plant
Conservation and the adoption of Decision X/17 committed
Parties to:
‘develop or update national and regional targets relevant
to the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation,
and, where appropriate, to incorporate them into relevant
plans, programmes and initiatives, including national
biodiversity strategies and action plans, and to
align the further implementation of the Strategy with
national and/or regional efforts to implement the Strategic
Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020.’
This strategy, while aligning closely with the Global Strategy
for Plant Conservation, is also appropriate to the Megadiverse
context in which conservation takes place in South
Africa. It has been developed simultaneously with the review
of South Africa’s National Biodiversity Strategy and
Action Plan, and all activities in South Africa’s Strategy for
Plant Conservation nest under activities within the National
Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan.
This strategy responds to the priorities of the South African
government, such as job creation through research
projects on how to grow medicinal plants on a national
scale and promoting a healthy environment for all of South
Africa’s people, one of the fundamental rights outlined in
South Africa’s constitution. With 85% of South Africans using
medicinal plants harvested from the wild, without the
availability of these plants the government would need to
significant increase fiscal spending on health care. Maintaining
ecological infrastructure through protection and
restoration of threatened ecosystems is also addressed here
and is a crucial intervention required to safeguard water
provision services to South Africa’s people.
I would like to thank stakeholders involved in the development
of this strategy, that is, under the leadership of the
South African National Biodiversity institute (SANBI) as the
focal point for the implementation of the GSPC nationally,
and with support from the National Department of
Environmental Affairs (DEA), the Botanical Society of South
Africa (BotSoc), a network of botanists and conservationists
which has been developed to includes conservation
agencies, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and
academic institutions.
With 6% of the world’s plant diversity and strong botanical
and conservation capacity, South Africa is well placed
to make a significant contribution to plant conservation
globally. I trust that the extensive network institutions and
conservationists that have been pulled together through
the development of this strategy will ensure its effective
implementation. This is one of the examples that show that
through working together we can achieve more!