Review Plant conservation: old problems, new perspectives Vernon H. Heywooda, Jose M. Iriondob,* aCentre for Plant Diversity and Systematics, School of Plant Sciences, The University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AS, UK bDepartamento de Biolog����a Vegetal, Universidad Polite��cnica de Madrid, E-28040, Madrid, Spain Abstract Nature conservation has changed from an idealistic philosophy to a serious technology (J. Harper, 1992) A review is given of the major conceptual changes that have taken place during the last 50 years in our understanding of the nature of plant conservation and of the principal methodological advances in undertaking conservation assessments and actions, largely through the incorporation of tools and techniques from other disciplines. The interrelationships between conservation and sustainable use are considered as well as the impact of the development of the discipline of conservation biology, the effects of the general acceptance of the concept of biodiversity and the practical implications of the implementation of the Convention on Bio- logical diversity. The effect on conservation policy and management of the accelerating loss or conversion of habitats throughout the world and approaches for combating this are discussed. # 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Conservation biology Conservation strategies Conservation tools Convention on Biological Diversity Management Sustainable development 0006-3207/03/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0006-3207(03)00121-6 Biological Conservation 113 (2003) 321���335 www.elsevier.com/locate/biocon Contents 1. Introduction ...............................................................................................................................................................................322 2. Conservation, conservation biology, biodiversity and ecology ..................................................................................................322 2.1. Conservation .....................................................................................................................................................................322 2.2. Conservation biology ........................................................................................................................................................323 2.3. Biodiversity........................................................................................................................................................................324 2.3.1. Biodiversity indicators...........................................................................................................................................324 2.3.2. Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning ................................................................................................................325 2.3.3. Human influences on biodiversity .........................................................................................................................325 2.4. Ecology..............................................................................................................................................................................325 3. Conservation strategies in a dynamic world...............................................................................................................................326 3.1. Setting goals and values ....................................................................................................................................................326 3.2. Time and space scale of concern .......................................................................................................................................326 3.3. Conservation targets and cost-effective biodiversity planning...........................................................................................327 3.4. Species-oriented conservation............................................................................................................................................328 3.4.1. Red lists of threatened species...............................................................................................................................328 3.4.2. In situ conservation of target species.....................................................................................................................329 3.4.3. Biological information and diagnosis of the factors threatening populations.......................................................329 3.4.4. Recovery actions ...................................................................................................................................................331 3.4.5. Ex situ conservation ..............................................................................................................................................331 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +34-913-365-435 fax: +34-913-365-656. E-mail address: iriondo@ccupm.upm.es (J.M. Iriondo).

1. Introduction The past 50 years have witnessed a major evolution in our understanding of conservation and its inter- relationship with the elusive goal of sustainable devel- opment. This period has also been marked by two antagonistic trends. On the one hand, there has been the rise of environmentalism and the establishment of conservation-orientated institutions and organisations and the negotiation and implementation of a series of treaties and other instruments that affect the ways in which most countries address these issues. On the other hand, the scale and intensity of human interac- tions with the environment have led to progressive and widescale habitat loss and degradation and frag- mentation, withsubsequent loss of species and genetic variability. As Wood et al. (2000) comment ���The race to save biodiversity is being lost, and it is being lost because the factors contributing to its degradation are more complex and powerful than those forces working to protect it.��� As a consequence, we are still faced withthe old pro- blems of how to address the conservation and manage- ment of protected areas, habitat loss, species loss, species recovery, but now withan increasing sense of urgency, leading to debates on how to set priorities, questioning of previous orthodoxy (even the role of protected areas) and searching for new approaches and tools for diagnosis and decision making in conservation and management. In this introductory review, we explore these issues, offer some definitions and a route map for the way ahead. This special issue of Biological Conservation gathers contributions written by participants at the II Workshop for the Conservation Biology of Plants held in Madrid. The spirit of this workshop was to assess current trends in plant conservation brought about by the integration of new approaches, techni- ques and methodologies, often incorporated from other disciplines. Not all the topics we raise here are covered directly by the papers in this special issue of Biological Conservation but we have included them so as to provide a more or less comprehensive overview. 2. Conservation, conservation biology, biodiversity and ecology 2.1. Conservation The term ���conservation��� is an ambiguous one and has had different meanings to different people and con- stituencies over time. The ambiguity of the term con- servation also derives from its having two roots (Jordan, 1995)���one in resource management and the other in natural history. The concern with resource manage- ment, which considered that biological resources had to be managed in sucha way that was not wasteful and ensured that they did not become exhausted or extinct, is a long-standing one and was clearly enunciated by the North American forester Gifford Pinchot who equated conservation withthe systematic exploitation of natural resources (Pinchot, 1947). Natural history roots of con- servation are still strong and expressed through concern at the loss of species and of the degradation or loss of the ���wilderness��� aspect of our natural landscapes. It is this populist perception of conservation, with its focus on familiar values suchas known and well-loved habi- tats or cherished species, that is still the main source of public support for conservation action. One of the greatest changes in our perception of con- servation stems from an increasing realisation of the amount of dynamism that exists in natural systems. This is reflected in Leopold���s (1949) evolutionary-ecological view of the ecology of living world as a complex and integrated system of interdependent processes and com- ponents, which foreshadowed current preoccupations with the maintenance of ecosystem health. This has led to another perspective that regards conservation as essentially management for change (cf. Luken, 1990), and emphasises the dynamics of the ecosystems, species and populations that we wish to conserve. Pickett et al. (1992) suggest that ���one does not conserve vegetation, which is a thing, but rather one is attempting to con- serve a dynamic���. To this has to be added the impending problems of global change���both demographic and cli- matic���that hang over us like a sword of Damocles. The context of conservation changed significantly following the UN Conference on the Environment at 3.5. The ecosystem approach....................................................................................................................................................332 3.6. Focal species approachin landscape restoration...............................................................................................................332 Acknowledgements..........................................................................................................................................................................333 References .......................................................................................................................................................................................333 322 V.H. Heywood, J.M. Iriondo / Biological Conservation 113 (2003) 321���335

Rio in 1992, itself the culmination of a remarkable series of major international initiatives in the preceding 30���40 years. The subsequent ratification by most of the world���s governments of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) marked a turning point and has placed the subject of biodiversity firmly on the political agenda. At a stroke, conservation ceased to be an optional extra and became o���cial, global and national policy. But what kind of conservation and how it was to be imple- mented is still under debate. The CBD did not in itself resolve the issues of conservation of biological diver- sity���indeed the term conservation is not even defined in the Convention���rather, it raised a debate that still continues on how it may be interpreted by the Parties. It is significant that the Convention refers to ���conservation of biological diversity��� and to ���sustainable use of its components��� as separate matters, although the idea that conservation and sustainable use are necessarily linked is now widely accepted. The most plausible explanation for this is that it reflects the concerns of developing countries who wished to place emphasis on the use of the components of biological diversity (in a sustainable manner) and did not wish to see a shift in emphasis towards the ���preservationist��� aspect. Today, different proponents of conservation put more emphasis on one or other of these approaches although the ���resourcist��� view of nature dominates at present, especially following the publication of the World Con- servation Strategy (IUCN/UNEP/WWF, 1980), which defined conservation as ���the management of human use of the biosphere so that it may yield the greatest sus- tainable benefit to present generations, while maintain- ing its potential to meet the needs of and aspirations of future generations. Thus conservation is positive, embracing preservation, maintenance, sustainable utili- sation, restoration and enhancement of the natural environment���. The resource and natural history con- cerns can be combined into a single definition suchas the following adapted from Jordan (1995): ���conservation is a philosophy of managing the environment in such a way that does not despoil, exhaust, or extinguish it or the resources and values it contains.��� This allows for the more strictly preservation aspects, suchas the preserva- tion of flagship species, ex situ storage of germplasm, and the protected areas approach to be covered as well as the sustainable use of resources and the maintenance of environment health. There is also an increasing tendency today to accept a broader integrative or holistic view that combines ele- ments of them all. An example of this can be seen in the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation adopted by the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biolo- gical Diversity at its sixthmeeting in April 2002 as well as in the European Plant Conservation Strategy devel- oped by the Council of Europe and Planta Europa. Targets both in the Global Strategy and the European Strategy address five major objectives that, as a whole, integrate the earlier-mentioned holistic view: (1) under- standing and documenting plant diversity (2) conser- ving plant diversity (3) using plant diversity sustainably (4) promoting education and awareness about plant diversity and (5) building capacity for the conservation of plant diversity. 2.2. Conservation biology Conservation biology is the new, multidisciplinary science that has developed to deal with the crisis confronting biological diversity (Primack, 1993) Of course, conservation is more than a concept and much effort has been devoted to resolving the scientific, technical, sociological and economic issues involved in implementing effective conservation action. This has manifested itself to a large degree in the rise of the discipline known as conservation biology that has been described as ���a recent response of the scientific community to the wave of global environmental change that is threatening to extinguish a very large fraction of the world���s biological diversity��� (Soule and Kohm, 1989). It is considered to have its origin in the First International Conference on Conservation Biol- ogy held in San Diego, California in 1978 that resul- ted in the publication in 1980 of a book edited by Soule and Wilcox, Conservation Biology: An Evolu- tionary-Ecological Perspective. The Society for Con- servation Biology was founded in 1985, and was ���dedicated to promoting the scientific study of the phenomena that affect the maintenance, loss, and restoration of biological diversity���. Conservation biology is a synthetic, multidisciplinary science that evolved since the 1980s, feeding on a variety of other areas of biology, notably ecology, demography, population biology, population genetics, biogeography, landscape ecology, environmental management and economics. It has also spawned new areas such as con- servation genetics (Avise and Hamrick, 1996), metapo- pulation ecology dynamics and biology (Hanksi, 1999 Hanski and Gilpin, 1997), restoration biology and ecol- ogy (Jordan et al., 1987), fragmentation biology and patch dynamics. The papers in this volume explore some of these aspects. Conservation biology is often termed a crisis dis- cipline, in that it arose in response to the dramatic loss of biodiversity that was being documented across the world and the need to take steps to anticipate, prevent and repair this situation. In the words of Soule and Kohm (1989), ���Conservation biologists view their main task as providing the intellectual and technological tools that will anticipate, prevent, minimize, and/or repair ecological damage���. V.H. Heywood, J.M. Iriondo / Biological Conservation 113 (2003) 321���335 323