More than 200 areas across North Africa and the Middle East have been identified as wild plant hotspots, a report has revealed. The research lists 207 places which are internationally important for the plants they contain, including 33 in Syria, 20 in Lebanon, 20 in Egypt, 21 in Algeria, 13 in Tunisia and five in Libya.
The report in question is “Important Plant Areas of the south and east Mediterranean region,” ((Radford, E.A., Catullo, G. and Montmollin, B. de. (eds.) (2011). Important Plant Areas of the south and east Mediterranean region: priority sites for conservation. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Malaga, Spain. Gland, Switzerland and Malaga, Spain: IUCN. VIII + 108 pp.)) just out thanks to IUCN, Plantlife International and WWF, and downloadable for free. The maps are nice, of course, and I hope they’ll be available in digital form in due course, if they are not already. ((I’ll have a look around when I have a minute.)) And it is also great to see a list of species with restricted ranges; it includes quite a few crop wild relatives, in particular Allium and Vicia spp.
It’s a pity that CWR don’t get a mention in the report though. Another missed opportunity for making the link between the PGRFA and ‘nature’ conservation community.