16 Conservation news
genetic and physiological information to aid conservation Discovery of new populations of the Vulnerable plant and to recover the species in the wild. Neopicrorhiza scrophulariiflora in Yunnan, China
QIAO YAOMEI and LIU JIAN Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity Neopicrorhiza scrophulariiflora (Pennell) D. Y. Hong, a per- and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, ennial herb of the monotypic genus Neopicrorhiza in the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan, China family Scrophulariaceae, occurs in Bhutan, Nepal, north- east India, and south-west China. It was first described as GONG XUN No. 132, Lanhei Road, Panlong District, Picrorhiza scrophulariiflora by Francis Whittier Pennell in Kunming City, Yunnan Province, China (Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia E-mail [email protected] Monographs, , ). The species was recognized as a class II protected species in the National Key Protected Wild Plants Capacity Building for Conservation 2019 List of China in and categorized as Vulnerable on the China Species Red List in .In the species was iden- One of the biggest challenges for conservation in the st cen- tified as one of plant species with extremely small popula- tury is establishing and maintaining sufficient capacity to tions in Yunnan, China. In , based on the field tackle the growing number of environmental pressures knowledge of experts, N. scrophulariiflora was evaluated to around the world. This capacity needs to provide individuals, occur in , localities in China, with an estimated population communities and organizations with the skills, knowledge of , , mature individuals. and information for undertaking the wide range of tasks re- To obtain up-to-date information on N. scrophulariiflora in quired for conserving biodiversity. To build this capacity we China a total of six field surveys were carried out in the south- need to develop, disseminate and evaluate a diversity of rele- west during –, with the joint support of the National vant and cost-effective methods. This can only be achieved by Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. , ensuring we learn from initiatives in different regions and ),theNationalKeyProgrammeoftheMinistryof have the opportunities to communicate with others building Science and Technology (Grant No. FY), and the capacity for conservation. Three regional conferences—in Talent Project of Yunnan (Grant No. HB). Two flow- Colombia in , Kenya in and India in —have ering populations of N. scrophulariiflora were discovered in facilitated the exchange of ideas on this subject. From these Hengduan Mountains in western Yunnan, growing on gravelly meetings a number of cross-cutting issues emerged: ()A grassland at an altitude of , m. One population, in range of new and regionally relevant capacity building tools Gongshan County, has individuals and another popula- is required to scale-up efforts to build capacity for conserva- tion,inDeqinCounty,has individuals. The discovery of tion, including the further development of technological so- thesenewpopulationsispromisingnewsfortheconservation lutions such as e-learning and tools that are accessible in a of the species. However, our survey and information obtained range of languages. () Capacity building strategies and initia- from interviews with local people indicated that the main tives must take into account the often different enabling en- threats to these populations are anthropogenic use (the roots vironments in different regions. () There is a need for the are used in traditional medicine) and road construction, and development of methods to evaluate capacity building and hence habitat loss. Effective measures are required to protect identify best practice. () There is an urgent need for conver- these new populations. sations between donors and grantees to gauge expectations The Kunming Institute of Botany is now carrying out and guide the appropriate focus of funding streams. To di- further studies on the population dynamics and genetic di- rectly tackle these issues, a global conference will take place versity of N. scrophulariiflora across the two populations, to at the Zoological Society of London on July– August improve management and protection of this species in . See https://conservationcapacity.co.uk/ for further China. In collaboration with staff of nature reserves, we information and the preliminary programme. The presenta- are also planning to collect seeds of N. scrophulariiflora tions will be live-streamed and made available on the confer- for propagation and future restoration of wild populations. ence website, and a series of short practical guides providing a Using species distribution models we plan to identify and comprehensive review of all major capacity building methods explore other sites in China where the species could poten- and associated research evidence will be published. For fur- tially grow. ther information or to discuss attendance please contact Mark O’Connell ([email protected]). RONG LI Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of MARK O’CONNELL University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, Sciences, Kunming, China. E-mail [email protected] Gloucestershire, UK. E-mail [email protected] YUN XIONG and JUN SUN Gongshan Branch of Gaoligongshan JAKE BURTON Fauna & Flora International, Cambridge, UK National Nature Reserve, Gongshan, China
Oryx, 2019, 53(1), 13–16 © 2018 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605318001321 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.34.90, on 27 Sep 2021 at 09:22:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605318001321