23 April 2012: Four members of the Global Partnership for Plant Conservation, which aims to support the implementation of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), have announced plans to develop the World Flora, the first online catalog of the world’s plants, to be made available by 2020.

The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, the New York Botanical Garden and the Missouri Botanical Garden have recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on organizing a framework to guide the compilation of information on up to 400,000 plant species worldwide. World Flora will respond to the need for a baseline survey on the plants of the world, as called for by the international community. It also aims to assist in the achievement of a primary target of the CBD’s Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, adopted in 2002, on halting the continuing loss of plant biodiversity around the globe.

The World Flora team will build a collaborative partnership and create a structure and programme to incorporate data from institutions and individuals all over the world. In some cases, existing electronic data sets will be combined and augmented with the results of botanical research from around the world. Historic information will be reviewed and updated as necessary, and converted to an electronic medium. As new plants are subsequently collected, named and described, they will be added to the World Flora. [CBD Press Release] [CBD webpage on updated Global Strategy for Plant Conservation]