16 CHARTERED FORESTER / CONSERVATION
CONIFERS UNDER T
Conifer specialist
Martin Gardner, from
the Royal Botanic
Garden Edinburgh,
reports on an important
programme to save
conifers from extinction
T
he escalating biodiversity crisis
driven by human overpopulation
and overconsumption is
intermittently highlighted by major
headlines. Sadly, as I write this,
breaking news confirms that the
world’s animal population has halved over
the last four decades. Similar headlines
abound for plants – especially conifers.
The depressing news for this
economically and ecologically important
group of plants is that 34 per cent of the
615 known conifer species are threatened
with extinction1. This is a rise of six per
cent over a period of 12 years since the last
time all the conifers were fully assessed for
threat using the criteria developed by the
International Union for Conservation and
Nature (IUCN) for threatened species.
The main causes of threat are:
•habitat degradation and loss
•invasive plant species
•human-induced climate change
•and, particularly for conifers, over
exploitation for timber and
non-forest products.
These are all causes where we can have
a positive input and, for example, some
progress has already been made towards
The monkey puzzle tree
is important to the
safe site network
broadening the genetic base of threatened
conifers cultivated in Britain and Ireland.
One key aspect to this work has been a
strategy that is at the heart of the
International Conifer Conservation
Programme (ICCP): networking.
Apart from its international activities
over the past 20 years in conducting global
conifer threat assessments – involving
mapping species distributions, conducting
field surveys in more than 30 countries and
initiating capacity-building programmes
– the ICCP has led an innovative
programme of ‘safe sites’ for the
conservation of threatened conifers
throughout Britain and Ireland. This
is a network of more than 200
dedicated sites where almost 14,000
threatened conifers are being
monitored. The sites are mainly on
private land, but also take in public
“The depressing news
is that 34 per cent of
the 615 known conifer
species are threatened
with extinction”
gardens, golf courses and even a monastery.
Significantly, they also include Forestry
Commission land where the programme has
helped to develop two important initiatives
– the Bedgebury Conifer Conservation
Project based at the Bedgebury National
Pinetum, Kent, and the iCONic Project
(Internationally Threatened Conifers in our
Care), based in Perthshire. Both projects
work closely with the ICCP and much of the
material used in these sites comes via its
WINTER 2014/15 17
HREAT
TWO UK PROJECTS
PROTECTING CONIFERS
Joint field work between staff of the ICCP, iCONic Project and the Bedgebury Conifer Conservation
Project collecting seed from Picea omorika in Bosnia and Herzegovina
The Bedgebury Conifer
Conservation Project
Endangered
giant redwoods
collaborative overseas seed-collecting
programmes.
One recently developed network
comprises a partnership with the City of
Edinburgh Council and Greenspace Service,
whereby threatened species are being
planted in some high-profile council sites,
including Princes Street Gardens, Lauriston
Castle and Saughton Park.
Many well-known conifer species are
listed as threatened and, therefore, play an
important role in the network of safe sites
listed in Table 1 on page 18. These include
the monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana),
cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani), giant
redwood (Sequoiadendron giganteum) and
Monterey cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa).
Even the widely-planted atlas cedar (Cedrus
atlantica), which was not listed in the last
continued overleaf>
The ICCP has worked with Bedgebury
National Pinetum since 1993, building up
its collection of threatened conifers.
The Bedgebury Conifer Conservation
Project was launched in 2003. It offers the
opportunity to re-evaluate a research area
that was originally planted in 1929 as trial
plots for a wide range of tree species to test
their suitability for forestry.
Many of these plots were destroyed by
the great storm of 1987 so, by developing
this area as a dedicated site for the
conservation of threatened conifers,
Bedgebury has moved from trialling trees
to saving them.
Today, the 31ha site, which is divided into
geographical zones, contains 1,300 newly
planted trees. They have been collected
from native stands in ten countries by
Bedgebury staff who are working in close
collaboration with other institutions.
The iCONic Project
Building on the success of Perthshire’s
Big Tree Country, the iCONic Project is
concerned with planting the next generation
of conifers by focusing on some of the
world’s most threatened species. It
builds on the remarkable legacy of the
early Scottish plant collectors, such as
Archibald Menzies and David Douglas, both
Perthshire men who introduced many of the
familiar conifers that have helped to shape
the designed landscape of the British Isles.
The project is working in partnership with
Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS), Perth
& Kinross Countryside Trust and the RBG
Edinburgh (through the ICCP) to achieve its
aim of planting 10,000 trees over the next
ten years. So far, more than 780 trees of
16 threatened species have been planted
in sites including the grounds of Scone
Palace, Hilton Dunkeld House Hotel, Blair
Castle, Gleneagles Hotel and numerous
FCS forestry sites.
The Bedgebury Conifer Conservation Project at the Bedgebury National Pinetum, Kent
!
Reference:
1. Source: Threatened Conifers of the World, the resource compiled by the
International Conifer Conservation Programme, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh:
http://threatenedconifers.rbge.org.uk
18 CHARTERED FORESTER / CONSERVATION
Table 1: Commonly cultivated conifers listed as threatened by IUCN
Species
Country of Origin
Threat Category
Threat
Araucaria araucana
Argentina and Chile
Endangered
Cedrus atlantica
North Africa
Endangered
Cedrus libani
Lebanon,Syria, Turkey
Vulnerable
Cupressus macrocarpa
USA
Vulnerable
Metasequoia glytostroboides
China
Endangered
Picea breweriana
USA
Endangered
Habitat loss due to land,
use changes
Fire
Picea omorika
Bosnia, Herzegovina and Serbia
Endangered
Fire, poor regeneration
Pinus radiata
USA
Endangered
Fire, grazing, fungal pathogens
Sequoia sempervirens
USA
Endangered
Logging, urbanisation
Sequoiadendron gigantuem
USA
Endangered
Logging, fire
Wollemia nobilis
Australia
Critically Endangered
Small population vulnerable to
harmful pathogens
Fire, grazing, invasive plant
species
Logging, fire and grazing
Fire, urbanisation, grazing,
fungal pathogens
Fire
>continued from previous page
review of the world’s threatened conifers in
1999, has in the last two years jumped from
‘Least Concern’ to ‘Endangered’. Also
included is the widely-planted Monterey
pine (Pinus radiata), much used across the
temperate world in countries such as Chile
and New Zealand as plantation species. This
species is now ‘Endangered’ in its native
California, where it is threatened by fire and
harmful fungal pathogens.
Even more at risk is the now widelygrown Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis),
which was first discovered in 1994 in a
remote part of the Wollemi National Park in
Australia’s New South Wales. On its
discovery, it was immediately placed on the
IUCN list as ‘Critically Endangered’, not
only due to its small population, but also
because of the potential threat of harmful
plant pathogens inadvertently being
introduced by visiting scientists. The
propagation and commercialisation of the
Wollemi pine, which saw it being sold across
the temperate world, is the most effective
ex situ conservation initiative of its kind. If
the native population was lost, then the
plants now cultivated would provide
valuable genetic material for the species to
be reintroduced into the wild.
Unfortunately, there are a further 90
conifers species currently listed as ‘Near
Threatened’ which could come into the
threatened categories in the next few years
if the current negative trends identified
earlier continue. This list includes the
commonly planted Lawson’s cypress
(Chamaecyparis lawsoniana), which is
threatened by international trade of its
timber and the spread of the introduced
pathogen Phytophthora lateralis, which limits
successful regeneration in many areas.
There are other ways in which
threatened conifers can be conserved by
ex situ means and, in May 2014, the first
planting of the Royal Botanic Garden (RBG)
Edinburgh’s conservation yew hedge took
Fortingall Yew (Taxus baccata), Perthshire
place. Over the next six years, further
sections of the hedge will be planted until,
eventually, more than 2,000 yew trees
surround three sides of the RBG
Edinburgh’s Inverleith site. This novel
initiative involves using a single species – in
this case the common European yew (Taxus
baccata) – and will include plants taken as
cuttings from a selection of famous heritage
trees and seeds of trees from across the
natural range of the species.
To date, seed collections have been made
from threatened populations in Albania, the
Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark,
England, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary,
Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia,
Sweden and the Ukraine. In effect, RBG
Edinburgh will be almost surrounded by
one of the world’s most genetically diverse
hedge using a single species. Plans are now
in place to use other threatened species in a
series of hedges within the garden at
Edinburgh and the ICCP is encouraging
other public gardens to develop their own
conservation hedges.
Through its combination of in situ and ex
situ research and conservation activities, the
ICCP demonstrates exemplary integrated
conservation management, which is the
most effective approach to help combat the
loss of conifer biodiversity. Broadening the
genetic base of threatened conifers grown
in cultivation provides a better opportunity
to help reinforce depleted native
populations and highlights the importance
of ex situ conservation in the battle against
biodiversity loss.
So, while it is clear that the ICCP’s
network of sites is an effective insurance
policy against possible biodiversity loss, it
also performs another crucial function. It
provides the opportunity to highlight the
conservation problems that conifers are
facing today by means of interpretation
and, importantly, through another very
significant ‘network’ – that of public
awareness and engagement.
Martin Gardner MBE VMM is Co-ordinator
of the International Conifer Conservation
Programme at the Royal Botanic Garden
Edinburgh