Science and development of government policypost-Global Strategy for Plant Conservation: lessons forthe future

摘要

The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC),adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2002, came tothe end of its first phase in 2010. Thus we felt that thiswas an appropriate theme for a discussion meetingjointly sponsored by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew,and the Royal Society of London (in June 2010).Adoption of the GSPC – by the parties to the CBD andimplemented through international organizations – asa framework to address the importance of plants insustaining biodiversity of all organisms is unique; itwas also much more ambitious than any other conservation measure ever adopted. It consisted of 16outcome-oriented targets across five major objectivesand tried to describe the targets in ways that could bemeasured, to one degree or another. Like many international agreements, it was subject to varying interpretations and retained flexibility for implementationat national and local levels, so that interpretationswere uniform in neither content nor intent. The GSPCnonetheless stands as a remarkable document and atleast a limited success.