Joint Research Project Seminar of Threatened Plant Species in Sino-Vietnamese Border Areas Held in Kunming Institute of Botany

The seminar of the "Joint Research Project of Threatened Plant Species in Sino-Vietnamese Border Areas" co-sponsored by Wild Fauna and Fauna & Flora International (FFI), Vietnam's Plant Protection Center(CPC) and Kunming Botanical Garden was held in Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB), Chinese Academy of Sciences.

About 30 people from FFI, CPC, Wenshan Prefecture Forestry Bureau, Xichou County Forestry Bureau, Malipo County Forestry Bureau and Xianhu Botanical Garden participated the meeting.

The project partners will carry out joint study of the threatened species in Sino-Vietnamese border areas from October 2009 to June 2010. The project aims at comprehensively understanding the distribution situation and threatened status of the endangered plants in Sino-Vietnamese border areas (including conifer, magnolia, Rhododendron simsii, camellia and maple), evaluating and commending reasonable protection measure and promoting the cooperation and exchange of Sino-Vietnamese experts.

Currently the phased work of desktop material collection of threatened target plants has been basically completed and the background information of the threatened species in Sino-Vietnamese border/China key areas was also preliminarily understood.

The executive director of Kunming Botanical Garden Sun Wei-bang and plant office of FFI China Projec Mrs. Li Xiao-ya co-emceed the meeting. During the meeting the participants developed fully discussion on the topics of common concerns of the cooperation units.

The meeting concluded with a consensus on how to establish more effective cooperation on how to better protect the region's biological diversity, how to release press news to raise the awareness of the endangered species protection as well as the objectives, location, route and time of the fieldwork in Vietnam.

About 47 species of Magnolia in China located in southeastern Yunnan, 29 species of which currently have small population, being listed as threatened species by China Species Red List, and at least 17 species of which are listed as threatened species by IUCN Red List of Magnoliaceae. It has been known that several of the threatened magnolias locate in the Sino-Vietnamese border areas and the distribution area may extend to northern Vietnam.

Conifer species are also the serious threatened species by comparison, 45 species of which in China and about 14 species of which in Vietnam is endangered. At the same time, about 10 threatened aceraceous species, 40 threatened cuculiform plants and more than 20 threatened Camellia plants are also distributed in the Sino-Vietnamese border areas.