Global Survey of Ex situ Oak Collections

The Red List of Oaks, published in 2007, called for action to ensure that the 29 taxa listed in the report as Critically Endangered or Endangered were conserved. The first stage of this action is to establish which of these very threatened taxa are held in ex situ collections around the world by carrying out a global survey.

The survey, published in 2009, identified 3,796 Oak records from 198 institutions in 39 countries. However, only 91 ex situ records representing just 13 of the most threatened Oaks were located. This means that more than half of the Critically Endangered or Endangered taxa are currently not known to cultivation and therefore at great risk of extinction if threats that they are facing in the wild are not addressed.

The report concludes by making a call for further information to fill gaps in our knowledge of collections and by making a series of recommendations based on the results of the survey including; strengthening of existing ex situ collections, establishing new collections, implementing restoration and reintroduction activities, involving local communities and organisation in conservation activities, developing public awareness programmes and enhancing BGCI’s PlantSearch database.

The report also calls for further information to fill gaps in our knowledge of ex situ collections.