Priority Species For Indonesian Orchid Conservation

The most threatened orchids do not always have the highest priority for conservation, because other values and factors need also to be considered in order to optimize the limited, available sources. Firstly, the target species should carefully be selected. Considerations for evaluating priority species for conservation should be based on the species total values which are completely no bias to certain values or factors. Thus the evaluation conducted was merely based on scientific, objective and neutral judgements. Scoring criteria included their taxonomic uniqeness, geographical distribution, population number, averaged population size, the largest population size, condition of the largest population, population decline, legal habitat protection, ex situ conservation, declining habitat, impact of predator/exploitation, competition, other factors influencing survivorship, habitat or nutrient specificity, reproductive or character specialization, propagation potency, and utilization value. Among the selected Indonesian orchids, 44 species had been ranked as high priority for immediate conservation actions. Proceedings of the 20th World Orchid Conference, Singapore, page 184-186 ISBN 978-981-07-07826-2