5th Planta Europa Conference
Cluj-Napoca - Romania
September 2007

Planta Europa Conference:
a chance for change

After many months of hard work, e-mails, telephone calls, abstracts up and down and a few last minute changes the fifth Planta Europa Conference “Working Together For Plants”, took place in Cluj-Napoca last September 2007.

The purpose of the Conference was two-fold: to celebrate and acknowledge the importance of the partnerships in achieving our goal (to halt the loss of plant diversity in Europe) and secondly to develop a new Strategy for plant conservation in Europe.

“New” and “change” were the key words of this conference. The Planta Europa Network is growing, the challenges for plant conservation are changing and the way we approach plant conservation has to change too.

The European Strategy of Plant Conservation, developed at the third Planta Europa Conference in Pruhonice (Czech Republic), has been our reference since 2001 but it is due to end at the close of 2007. Throughout this year the Network members and other contributors reviewed the European Strategy in depth.

Planta Europa work documents:European Plant Conservation Strategy (2001), Mid-Term Review (2004) and Final EPCS Review (2007)

Following some intensive conference workshops at the conference in Cluj, participant helped by the recommendations in the Review, and in anticipation of the key political date for biodiversity of 2010, participants worked to develop a new European Strategy for plants and fungi that was further integrated with the CBD Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC). They took account of newly emerging issues, such as Climate Change and the application of the ecosystem approach and sought to develop and maintain alliances with other Networks and organisations. The result was the basis for a new European Strategy for Plant Conservation that responds to these new challenges. Currently it has 32 targets under the 5 GSPC objectives, this may change during the pan European consultation on the strategy that will begin in November 2007. Watch this website for details.

Many participants emphasised how the conference has made them more aware of the challenges other colleagues are facing in their countries.

International events like this widen our perspectives and underline the importance of cooperation when we are pursuing a common goal.

The themed and strategic workshops resulted in the discussion and presentation of many excellent projects, and the development of new practical and creative ideas for plant conservation, as well as the refining existing projects. There is not enough space for the detail here but they will be captured within the new Strategy. A few of the main ideas and items highlighted by the participants include:

• The necessity of shifting site and protection strategies and the importance of ecological corridors;
• The presentation of outstanding botanical studies about national flora and the influence of agriculture in plant conservation;
• The need to promote sustainable use of plant biodiversity, including more botanical expertise into improving agri-environment planning and monitoring;
• The ongoing importance of assessing species conservation status and producing Red Lists;
• The need to participate in/influence the development of certification schemes (Soil Association Organic, FSC, Fair Trade),
• The need to be aware of the impact of plantations to produce biofuel and carbon offsetting planning
• The need to maximise and develop existing relationships between the in situ and ex situ conservation community in Europe.
• The successful use of art to awaken plant conservation interest
• The continued invaluable contribution to conservation through projects with volunteers and students

A significant number of other networks featured at the Planta Europa conference: ex-situ conservation and botanical garden associations, IUCN Species Survival Commission, CEEWEB, the plant genetics and wild crop relative sectors (PGR forum & the Crop Wild Relative information system, in-situ group of the European Cooperative Programme for Genetic Resources ECPGR) and BirdLife International. Planta Europa is willing to develop relationships with these networks and give more emphasis to encouraging closer collaboration and data sharing (for example through a new European Strategy for Plant Conservation web platform for information exchange, the European IPA on-line database and the Global Biological Information Facility).

 

In summary, a huge Planta Europa brainstorm involving all participants, was followed by distilling key ideas and activities to achieve in the basis of a focussed Strategy for the conservation of plants and fungi in Europe to take us from 2008 – 2014. All in 4 days!

For Planta Europa itself, the emerging new European Strategy comes with a new look Planta Europa Steering Committee including a change at the very top where Prof. Dr. Anca Sarbu succeeds Dr Torleif Ingelog as President of the Network. We thank Torleif for his commitment and dedication to Planta Europa over the past 12 years and we welcome Anca as the new President. Anca is already very familiar with Planta Europa, and is looking forward to working with the Steering Committee, leading the Network in the countdown to 2010. This countdown will include establishing Planta Europa Ltd – thus making the Network an independent legal entity. A move that will allow the Secretariat to seek more sustainable long term funding.

The conference was 4 days of work, work and more work but participants enjoyed some fantastic social events which us gave time to chat informally with old ‘plant and fungi friends’ and to make new ones. We also discovered some unknown facts about European botanists; the ability of botanists to dance the night away to everything from ABBA to the Waltz. Not forgetting the warm hospitality of the Romanian people and the time spent discovering a little bit more about their country’s astonishing natural heritage in the post conference excursions.

Finally the Planta Europa Network is very grateful for the organisational management of Ms. Alina Serban and her professional team at TRIMA EVENTS and also the invaluable collaboration / coordination of our Romanian members that made this event the success it was in gathering organisations and individuals from all over the continent to share experiences in plant conservation

See the conference website for further information.