Global Strategy for Plant Conservation

•(i) A widely accessible working list of known plant species, as a step towards a complete world flora; •(ii) A preliminary assessment of the conservation status of all known plant species, at national, regional and international levels; •(vii) 60 per cent of the world's threatened species conserved in situ  

At the 6th Conference of the Parties (COP6) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in April, 2002, the Parties adopted a landmark Decision on a Global Strategy for Plant Conservation.  The Strategy includes 16 targets and represents the first time targets have been set to guide and monitor progress in fulfilling the Convention.  Natural history collections (herbarium specimens) contribute directly to achieving baseline target (i), a necessary precursor for all other targets.  Herbarium collections also document the distributions of species and therefore contribute directly to achieving targets (ii) and (vii).