The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) is an organisation established in 2004 in terms of the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act, No 10 of 2004, under the South African Department of Environmental Affairs (later named Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries), tasked with research and dissemination of information on biodiversity, and legally mandated to contribute to the management of the country’s biodiversity resources..
Successful management of invasive plants often requires broad societal buy-in. Hence, to facilitate management, it is important to understand what influences and drives perceptions of those involved or affected by invasive plants’ distribution, management, and impacts. In this paper, we focus on a sector central to this space—the ornamental industry—and on a geographic region that is highly affected by plant invasions but remains under-researched-Southern Africa. Using various techniques (semi-structured interviews, workshops, informal conversations, and questionnaires), we assessed key stakeholders' understanding of plant invasions and perceptions of invasive ornamental plants, collating data from 78 environmental specialists, 38 ornamental industry staff, and 72 ornamental gardeners. This data collection included participants from Botswana (104), Namibia (50), Zimbabwe (18), South Africa (13), and Zambia (3). We found that, across these groups, there is a broadly similar understanding of invasions consistent with definitions used in research and policymaking. People are often aware of ecological processes but do not necessarily use “scientific” terms to describe them. However, both the different groups and individuals within the groups differed in how they perceived specific plants. We argue that these differences are shaped by people’s interests, professions, and socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, that are, in turn, shaped by broader socio-ecological and geopolitical dynamics. Such differences in perceptions can, of course, result in conflicts of interest, particularly when varying perceptions are informing conflicting actions. We believe that stakeholder relations would benefit from open, relational, balanced, and regular communication with a view to reaching agreements. Such communication should value and recognise the diversity in capacities, perceptions and knowledge as a step to removing power imbalances. This is particularly relevant in the Southern Africa context where successful invasive species management requires acknowledging and addressing racial and classist segregation that shape mutual perceptions and relations with invasive plants and landscapes.
Tree ferns (order Cyatheales) have been moved from their native ranges for more than two centuries, and the number of species introduced to new countries has recently increased rapidly. However, no comprehensive global list of alien tree ferns exists. Botanical garden collections and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility database were examined, and a systematic literature review was conducted to collect information on tree fern introduction dates, locations and impacts in non-native ranges. Overall, 158 species out of 795 Cyatheales species (c. 20
Global biodiversity policies recognize the necessity to preserve evolutionary lineages, as their diversity underpins current and future benefits to people and the future of life on Earth. Plants are largely absent from global biodiversity assessments, resulting in a taxonomic imbalance that has undermined their conservation for decades. We present a tree of life and extinction risk estimates for all species of flowering plants (angiosperms), representing a global assessment of their threatened evolutionary history. We estimate that 21.2% of angiosperm evolutionary history is at risk of extinction and identify 9945 priority species that disproportionately account for total threatened evolutionary history. These prioritizations serve to redress imbalances between plants and animals, monitor conservation effectiveness, and optimize resource allocation in the face of increasing human pressures on biodiversity.
Documented living plant collections distinguish botanic gardens from other green spaces and horticultural landscapes. With more than 3,500 collections worldwide, these institutions steward at least 105,634 species-around 30% of all land plant diversity-while fulfilling amenity, educational, scientific and conservation roles. However, twenty-first-century challenges demand a re-evaluation of how these collections are documented and managed. We argue that meeting these emerging needs requires higher standards of coordinated information management and innovation in data infrastructures across the global network. This Perspective critically examines data management practices of living collections supporting scientific research and conservation, from institutional to global levels. We identify the renewed demands on living collections, highlight exemplar global data infrastructures, define data challenges inherent to living collections and explore how current systems fall short in enabling a connected global system. Finally, we outline a vision for high-performance collections, fully integrated into a robust global data ecosystem.
ABSTRACT Fragmented systems for monitoring and assessing biodiversity and ecosystem services limit the ability to track progress at local and national scales in international multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). This greatly challenges coordinated actions to meet agreed‐upon global commitments. Filling this gap requires integrated and concerted design of data‐to‐decision workflows. The Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) and Essential Ecosystem Service Variables (EESVs) are tools that can coordinate structured and consistent monitoring, generate harmonized and scalable data products, and facilitate reporting that is useful for multiple purposes. Specifically, EBV/EESV data products are intended to synthesize information to serve the needs of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the System of Environmental‐Economic Accounts Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA‐EA), and assessments of the Intergovernmental Science‐Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) while also informing regional, national, and sub‐national conservation policy. This integrative approach works if local data collection is designed to be interoperable, and it is fundamental to improve models, forecasts, and indicators required in key policy and decision processes. Through application cases, we demonstrate the use of EBVs and EESVs in national assessments and scenario analyses for strategic policy and spatial planning with scalable and repeatable workflows from primary data to indicators for decision support.
