Wild species are being displaced or overcropped, and wild ecosystems can no longer be taken for granted as reservoirs of genetic diversity and regulators of the cycles of the elements. Plants are a central component of this threatened nature. The loss of plants is very significant, for they stand at the base of food webs and provide habitats for other organisms. Although people in some modern societies may be mentally distanced from the reality of nature and are unaware of the services it provides, even city inhabitants are part of wider ecosystems, based on wild plants and natural vegetation. For example, genes from the wild can play major roles in the breeding of new varieties of food crops and other cultivated plants.
New medicines continue to be derived from wild species.
In many countries, natural and semi-natural ecosystems provide many plant products essential for human welfare, including fuelwood, timber, fiber, medicinal plants, fruits and nuts. Forests protect catchments and thus help regulate the flow of water for drinking, hydropower and irrigation. And wild nature not the least wild plants contribute to the natural beauty of the world that we rightly cherish. In Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 over a hundred Heads of States and Governments signed a new International Convention of the Conservation of Biological Diversity that is, of the world's rich variety of genes, species and ecosystems. They did so not out of altruism, but because they recognized that these resources were economically valuable and important to the future of humanity.