XVI International Botanical Congess

All people use plant resources, with a great diversity of species in traditional use. The greatest volume of use per head occurs in developed countries with the greatest potential financial benefits per unit weight from plant use coming from new commercial products such as crop varieties, pharmaceuticals, etc. Plant diversity can be threatened when use results in habitat loss or when populations of vulnerable wild species are harvested, for the plant trade for example. Conservation measures relevant to plant resource users include some that are relevant to the user as producer and consumer, as in subsistence economies, and some that are relevant to the user as trader, as in the case of commercial exploitation. Examples are provided from the People and Plants Initiative B a global program in capacity-building in applied ethnobotany of WWF, UNESCO, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.