Plantlife's Important Plant Areas - 2020

Important Plant Areas (IPA) are the most important places in the world for wild plants. The Important Plant Areas concept identifies a network of the most valuable sites for plant diversity as a basis for prioritising conservation action at the site and landscape level. As such, the Important Plant Areas network in the UK supports and complements existing protected areas and conservation programmes. IPAs are not intended to be a form of site designation. The selection of Important Plant Areas follows consistent, internationally agreed scientific guidelines. IPAs have at least one of the following: • A significant population of one or more species of international conservation concern; • An exceptionally rich flora in a European context; • An outstanding example of a habitat of international plant conservation and botanical importance IPAs include all plant taxon groups including vascular plants, lichens, bryophytes, freshwater and marine algae, stoneworts and desmids. Publications: Important Plant Areas: revised selection criteria for a global approach to plant conservation | Biodiversity and Conservation (springer.com) For more information please visit the Plantlife IPA website. For any queries about the dataset, please contact our Data & GIS team at [e-mail].