Plant Conservation

December 15, 2013
The true building blocks of civilization, plants furnish the fuel humans need for their bodies and industry, provide the raw materials for clothing and shelter, and, increasingly, are essential components of advanced and complex medical therapies. Plants are also very much in danger. Due to climate change and habitat destruction, genetic modification and overconsumption, plant species are going extinct at an alarming rate. But thanks to the dedicated efforts of scores of botanists, scientists, and government officials around the world, the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) was developed at the dawn of this century to set quantifiable goals for conserving plants and seeds to be accomplished by 2020. An attainable target or an exercise in futility? Nimbly combining hard science with appealing anecdotes, Walker succinctly identifies the initiative's primary objectives and examines the ways, both large and small, that gardeners and grassroots activists, biologists and backyard nature buffs can get involved to guarantee that the earth's precious and diverse plant culture lives on.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)