Title: 1997 IUCN red list of threatened plants
Description: The Species Survival Commission (SSC) is one of six volunteer commissions of IUCN - The World Conservation Union - a union of sovereign states, government agencies and non-governmental organizations. IUCN has three basic conservation objectives: to secure the conservation of nature, and especially of biological diversity, as an essential foundation for the future, to ensure that where the earth's natural resources are used this is done in a wise, equitable and sustainable way and to guide the development of human communities towards ways of life that are both of good quality and in enduring harmony with other components of the biosphere.

The SSC's mission is to conserve biological diversity by developing and executing programmes to save, restore and wisely manage species and their habitats. A volunteer network comprised of nearly 7,000 scientists, field researchers, government officials and conservation leaders from 188 countries, the SSC membership is an unmatched source of information about biological diversity and its conservation. As such, SSC members provide technical and scientific counsel for conservation projects throughout the world and serve as resources to governments, international conventions and conservation organizations.

The wealth of data provided by SSC's volunteers presents its own challenges in terms of information systems. SSC's data management partner, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, provides the necessary technical support, including the compilation of Red Lists.

The Red Data Book concept was originated by a former SSC Chair, the late Sir Peter Scott in the mid-1960s. Red Data Books are catalogues of information on species threatened with extinction, and they aim to focus attention on the plight of the earth's vanishing wildlife. The concept has been outstandingly successful and, three decades later, many national, regional and global Red Data Books have been published. Many more countries are in the process of compiling their own lists of threatened species.

The demand for a simple international list that categorizes the status of globally threatened taxa is growing, partly as a result of the increasing number of international conventions. It was to meet this need that the first IUCN Plant Red Data Book was published in 1978. This second, greatly expanded edition will pave the way for continual updates.

Although the length of the Red List is sobering the information it presents is of fundamental value to scientists, managers, and decision-makers responsible for the health and well being of our environment.
Subjects: Plant conservation, Endangered plants, Plantes menacées, Rare plants, Endangered species, Conservation of natural resources, Plantes en voie de disparition, Plantes, Conservation, Plantes rares