The 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants represents a milestone in the history of Red Data books and lists, providing, as it does, the first-ever published list of vascular plants (ferns and fern allies, gymnosperms including conifers and cycads, and flowering plants) recorded as globally Rare, Vulnerable, Endangered or Extinct. The current list names 33,798 species as threatened. Compared to an estimated global flora of 270,000 species this results in the grim statistic that over 12.5 % of the world's vascular flora is threatened at the global scale. These threatened plants are to be found in 369 families, scattered throughout 200 countries.

Percentage of the world's vascular plant species threatened at a global scale.

It must be stressed that although over 12.5% of the world's flora has now been identified as globally threatened, this is just the tip of the iceberg for several reasons. Despite data drawn from thousands of sources, much information is still lacking, either due to gaps in taxonomic knowledge or on-the-ground fieldwork. Secondly, information was often only available to indicate that a species was threatened in part of its range. Although suspected to merit listing as globally threatened, these species were not included in this list as the distribution data were incomplete and therefore did not satisfy the strict conditions for listing. Finally, data presented here are assessed at the species, subspecies, or varietial level. When the unit being assessed is the population within a species or the genetic erosion within these species and populations, the conservation situation becomes much worse (Gaston, 1996; Harper & Hawksworth, 1994). This concern about genetic erosion and diminishing genetic diversity at the population level is particularly important in the areas of plant genetic resources and wild relatives of cultivated plants (Falk & Holsinger, 1991; Falk et al 1996, Frankel et al 1995, Heywood, 1995).

The major message of this global compilation is that the number of threatened plant species that we know of is enormous but as information increases the situation will be shown to be even worse; thus, increased conservation action for plants is desperately needed. We hope that this list will help governments, non-government organisations, and individuals to better understand the scale and urgency of the problems surrounding threats to plants on a global scale, and use this information to guide actions to better conserve plant biodiversity in all of its incredible richness.

This list is the result of years of data collection by researchers throughout the world and provides a unique overview of the conservation status of the world's vascular plants, following the original IUCN Red List Categories. It has been compiled by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) in close collaboration with the many partners noted in the acknowledgements, and was generated directly from WCMC's Threatened Plants database on 22 May 1997. The database underlying this list continues to be updated on a daily basis and we remain as eager as ever to receive comments and additional information on any aspect of this book.

The full text of the introduction to the book is available here.

Citation: Walter, K.S. and Gillett, H.J. [eds] (1998). 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants. Compiled by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre. IUCN - The World Conservation Union, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. lxiv + 862pp.