Current state of plant translocations actions across Europe

Plant translocation is an increasingly used conservation technique for restoring extirpated or depleted populations. To respond effectively to European conservation policies (e.g., art. 11.2 of the Bern Convention, art. 22 of the Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC), translocations must inevitably increase to enable species to colonize habitats that they are unable to reach by natural dispersal. Case studies, best practice and experiences of plant reintroductions are however not well-synthesized, lack crucial and precise implementation manuals and are not sufficiently disseminated to the plant conservation community, most often remaining in unpublished internal reports to which access is difficult. The working group 2 launched a large-scale continent-wide survey with 39 questions relating to methods, motivations, problems encountered and outcomes, by especially focusing on the unpublished data of the large network of the participating countries of this COST Action. The questionnaire survey was also supplemented by a screening of scientific publications, grey literature and national/regional databases. We gathered data on 3,218 plant translocations across the European continent carried out on 1,184 taxa in 28 countries, which represents the largest dataset of its kind in the world. The first results were presented at the final conference of the COST ConservePlants Action in Izola in February 2024.

This activity is being performed by WG2, led by Sandrine Godefroid and Andreas Ensslin.

You can download the presentation here.