IPAs for community benefit

Highlighting and conserving IPAs can lead to improved livelihoods and community benefits through better awareness and management of key plant resources for materials, food and medicine, water security, ecosystem services, greater recognition of the value of spiritual or religious sites, or sustainable eco-tourism.

The Great Orme has a unique microclimate and ecology. Centuries of grazing by sheep, cattle and goats have produced an incredible mosaic of habits, including a flower-rich limestone grassland. This limestone grassland is one of the reasons that Plantlife identified the Great Orme as an Important Plant Area (IPA). The over 350-million-year-old headland boasts a profusion of more than 480 plants, such as hoary rockrose and the Great Orme berry- the UK’s only native species of Cotoneaster.  

In recent years, the traditional flocks of sheep no longer wandered the Great Orme. Without their specific grazing patterns, scrub and invasive plants were encroaching and threatening to outcompete the existing grassland plant communities. However, in 2015 this was all about to change.  

A series of events were set in motion when the National Trust purchased Parc Farm in the Great Orme and Plantlife created a partnership with local conservation organisations to better manage the unique grassland habitat. A talented shepherd was required, and there was a worldwide search to sell the farm for just £1.  

The successful shepherd was Dan Jones, and he settled into Park Farm in 2016.   

Plantlife provided the flock of 290 local Lleyn sheep, which joined with an additional 70 Lake District Herdwicks – the perfect hardy breeds for this rugged landscape.

Land use change, illegal logging, development, and wildfire outbreaks are threatening the ecosystems of Chiquitania. This urgency led to the designation of 18 Tropical Important Plant Area (TIPA) sites in Chiquitania, the first in Latin America and a huge step in protecting these precious habitats.  This has led to a multitude of benefits, seen rippling throughout local communities, ecosystems, and beyond. 

Ruth Delgado of Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza (FAN), a Bolivian NGO committed to conserving protected areas explains that many of these communities face mounting pressure to convert their land into farmed plantations and cattle ranches, as a means of bringing more money into the region in line with Brazilian and Argentinian producers.

By equipping local people to sustainably harvest and market high-quality non-timber products within the IPAs, such as Chiquitania almond, copaiba, and pescoe oil, FAN is changing local perceptions about the value of the forest, cultivating pride in indigenous culture, and inspiring a sense of community responsibility to protect what nature provides. The IPA of Ipias contains several dozen hectares of pesoe trees, which local people now manage to the benefit of both the ecosystem and the economy.

The success of these programmes has earned the attention of the departmental government of Santa Cruz, who are now factoring the Chiquitania IPAs into their conservation action plans and working to identify new priority areas of botanical importance. 

From food and medicine to social and spiritual values, people use tens of thousands of plants across the world. Updates to guidelines on Important Plant Area (IPA) identification in 2017 included socially, economically or culturally valuable species for the first time, but this approach has still to be widely implemented. 

Colombia is one of the most biodiverse countries on earth, supporting over 7,000 plant species with reported human uses.

Following the country’s 2016 Peace Agreement, development plans have been linked to biodiversity conservation and bioeconomic development, but deforestation rates are still rising. A review by researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew found many cases of unsustainable harvesting and the loss of useful wild plants.  

While conservation traditionally focused on scientific methods, the importance of working with communities is increasingly acknowledged: local and indigenous people often have in-depth knowledge and a connection with the plant species they use. The IPA programme in Colombia focused on useful plants to conserve its incredible biological and cultural diversity, while helping to involve communities and bring local knowledge into prioritising conservation activity. This interdisciplinary conservation practice can be seen as a nature-based solution providing ecological, economic and social benefits. 

Researchers at Kew are therefore taking this socio-ecological approach to IPAs in Colombia. At the national level, traditional biogeographical methods are being applied to identify areas with threatened and high numbers of useful plants, based on existing scientific data. At the local level, they are working with local communities in three pilot areas—the municipalities of Otanche, Becerril, and Bahía Solano—to understand their plant uses, perceptions, and priorities for plant conservation.

As part of the Useful Plants and Fungi of Colombia project (UPFC), researchers and local people undertook a series of workshops and botanical field expeditions in the pilot areas. They have identified the range of plants used in each municipality, revealed local trends in use and abundance, and shown the geographic areas most prioritised by community members. In addition to getting a better idea of specific local contexts, these data are being compared with those used for national-level analyses to see how scientific and local knowledge systems can be used to complement each other more widely when prioritising conservation action. 

A partnership project lead by Plantlife International and European Important Plant Area partners in Croatia, Romania, Slovenia, United Kingdom and Bulgaria celebrated the art, culture & history of wildflowers, in the places where they grow, amongst the rural communities who maintain their landscapes.  

Wildflower culture is part of European identity and is part of what links different individuals & communities to each other, their history, and their landscapes. They represent simultaneously uniqueness, diversity and the interconnectedness of Europe’s cultures & landscapes. The project celebrated the art, culture and history of our wildflowers from the European scale to the stories of individuals & communities. 

The flowers of the field & meadow and the role they play in our culture, are part of the common European heritage, but their depiction in art, literature, performance, design & symbolism is as diverse and ever changing as the human populations who shape & have shaped the continent.

The project re-inspired an interest in the art & culture of wildflowers for a new generation of Europeans and provided a focus for livelihoods at the project sites, based on culture, local products & sustainable tourism which bring benefit to local communities and help to maintain plant rich landscapes. The project brought together groups who rarely work together including community & arts groups, farmers, foresters, culture students & professionals, schools, tourism services, botanists & conservationists with an inclusive art & culture project, the Patchwork Meadow and annual wildflower festivals in each of the participating countries. 

Due to their global conservation significance, many sites are recognised as Important Plant Areas – 6 in western Scotland, 5 in western Wales, 7 in the southwest of England and the Lake District IPA.  It occurs where a wet and mild climate, clean air, and coastal and upland ancient woodland meet.

This rainforest is habitat for some of the most important biodiversity that occurs in the UK. The UK’s rainforest's bryophyte (moss and liverwort) richness rivals the cloud forest of the Andes. It also has some of the best examples of ancient dry-bark community lichens in the world.

These rainforest IPAs are places of inspiration and imagination. For generations, the mist-cloaked wilderness has fired the creativity of writers, painters and poets. They are steeped in folklore, such as the Scottish Ghillie Dhu - a kind and gentle fairy covered in leaves and moss who cares for lost children. They are places of education and stimulation, providing a sense of peace to those who spend time beneath their branches. School teachers see them as a great way of taking children out of the classroom, giving them space to think whilst learning the value of this ecosystem so close to home. Local farmer caretakers are aiding the rainforest’s regeneration, not just as a valuable resource for their livestock but also for the natural heritage it offers for future generations.  

The UK’s temperate rainforest IPAs face numerous threats, including habitat fragmentation; the overwhelming presence of the invasive species Rhododendron ponticum; ash dieback; and inappropriate grazing. Temperate rainforests in the West of England are much more isolated than other UK counterparts on the West Coast of Scotland or Snowdonia and the Elenydd in Wales.

Until a few years ago, these rainforests were relatively unknown, now their new found celebrity status is helping conservation organisations, local communities, and farmers to protect and restore this precious habitat.