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In issuing its ‘Gran Canaria Declaration on Climate Change and Plant Conservation’ the Gran Canaria Group, whose membership is drawn from major biodiversity conservation organisations around the world, including botanic gardens, is calling on the international community to take urgent action to protect global plant diversity.

The declaration provides specific guidelines for action and recognises the pivotal role of botanic gardens in delivering the conservation message worldwide to their over 200 million annual visitors. Equally important, it says, botanic gardens offer an insurance policy for the future, their collections of wild plants safeguarded as native habitats vanish. Key climate change concerns are also highlighted in the declaration, including the use of natural vegetation in water management and carbon offsetting and the vital defensive work of coastal ecosystems in the face of rising sea levels and extreme weather events.

The declaration calls for immediate conservation action to protect plant species most at risk from climate change.