Abstract
The global loss of biodiversity is a pressing and urgent issue and halting loss is the focus of many international agreements and targets. However, data on species distribution, threats and protection are limited and sometimes lacking in many parts of the world. The British Virgin Islands (BVI), part of the Puerto Rican Bank Floristic Region in the Caribbean Biodiversity Hotspot, is rich in plant diversity and regional endemism. Despite the established network of National Parks in the BVI and decades of botanical data from international collaboration between the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the National Parks Trust of the Virgin Islands, there was a need for consolidated data on species distribution across the archipelago and national lists for threatened and rare plants of conservation concern. The process of identifying the network of 18 Tropical Important Plant Areas (TIPAs) in the BVI, completed in 2018, delivered national lists and accurate data for all 35 Species of Conservation Concern. These data (3688 georeferenced records) are analysed here to reveal species distribution across the archipelago, within the TIPAs network and the National Parks System. The TIPAs network contained all 35 Species of Conservation Concern and 91% of all the records, as expected. Ten out of the 21 National Parks had one or more of the species present. Most species occur across the archipelago, while some are restricted range and/or endemics. These new data will help management of plant conservation efforts and resources in the BVI, contributing to the revision of the Protected Areas System Plan and local environmental policies and have relevance to the wider Caribbean Region.
Highlights
Nature is declining at an unprecedented rate and global wildlife populations have decreased by 68% since 1970 (WWF 2020)
The 21 declared National Parks and eight Proposed National Parks used for the analyses presented in this paper correspond to the terrestrial National Parks in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) Protected Areas System Plan 2007–2017 (Gardner et al 2008)
The Tropical Important Plant Areas (TIPAs) model developed for the BVI, the first of its kind in the Caribbean, has been successful in identifying and mapping plant species of national and global conservation concern and areas important for plant conservation in the BVI
Summary
Nature is declining at an unprecedented rate and global wildlife populations have decreased by 68% since 1970 (WWF 2020). Estimates of global extinction rates are 100–1000× greater than in the geological past (Dasgupta 2021). As we better understand that our economies, livelihoods and well-being all depend on Nature, there is greater support from the wider population for increased and urgent conservation interventions (Dasgupta 2021). Developing priorities for these conservation interventions has been the focus of much research targeting regional scale sites, such as Biodiversity Hotspots (Mittermeier et al 1998; Myers et al 2000) or discrete sites, such as Alliance for Zero Extinction sites (Ricketts et al 2005). Identifying Important Plant Areas (IPAs) (Darbyshire et al 2017; Plantlife 2018), in the tropics, has become an area of increased activity and the application of this methodology is the focus of this paper
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