A publication like this can only be a beginning. Strategies to conserve plant diversity are needed at all geographical levels global, national and local and should form an integral part of all land development plans. And strategies have to be turned into action. Many of the sites described in these volumes are subject to threats and pressures and solutions will depend on finding a balance between different interests, site by site. The solutions are likely to be almost as diverse as the sites, since the environmental features of the latter and the nature of the threats to them vary so widely.
People are at the heart of conservation as well as the source of many threats.
Virtually all terrestrial ecosystems, even those that appear to be more pristine, have long included people as components. For example, there are very few, if any, areas of tropical forest which do not provide local people with products for their use, and which have not been altered as a result of interaction with the users over the centuries. And, although local people have been components of natural ecosystems, sometimes for tens of thousands of years, their present day interactions with their environment are not necessarily harmonious. Moreover, cultures, whether of local people or professionals, including botanists, land managers and legislators, are not static. The search for appropriate practices, which will conserve plant diversity, perhaps while using it and other environmental resources sustainably, will be a continuing process.