Endangered flora of Andorra

The study of the vascular flora of Andorra has a long and intermittent history.

From the first foreign explorers who came in the Pyrenees looking for the structure of the Pyrenean flora, and carrying out the first more or less exhaustive inventories, the first major complete study of Andorra's flora dates back to 1980-89 when Institut d'Estudis Andorrans, then from its delegation in Perpignan, commissioned the French botanist Jean Bouchard to prepare a study that led to the publication of the book "Primer herbari de la flora d'Andorra", and the compilation of the set of plants inventoried in a Herbarium that is kept at the offices of Andorra Recerca + Innovació.

The Bouchard Herbarium (Herbarium code: IEA) is a public research collection, and as such, intended for professionals. It can only be consulted "on site" at Andorra Research + Innovation and to do so it is necessary to request it in advance at the center itself. On the other hand, the digitization of a large number of documents is available, which can be consulted here, as well as the photographic background of J. Bouchard himself.

In March 2012 the Herbarium Bouchard was registered in the Index Herbariorum with the code: IEA. This index, managed by The New York Botanical Garden, allows people from all over the world to access and consult the Bouchard Herbarium virtually, as well as contact Andorra Research + Innovation if they want to deepen their knowledge.

 

---

Between the years 2004 - 2008, the Government of Andorra and the former Institut d'Estudis Andorrans jointly commissioned Grup de Recerca de Geobotànica i Cartografia ce la Vegetació de la Universitat de Barcelona to update the flora species present in Andorra and also the evaluation of them based on their risk of disappearance. The result was the Check-list and Red List of the Flora of Andorra (Carrillo et al., 2008).

The Check-list is a complete and contrasted list of the vascular flora of Andorra. The starting checklist consisted of 1.537 taxa of well-established autochthonous and non-autochthonous flora, but it already indicated the omission of nearly 200 plant species whose presence in Andorra could not be ensured. Several subsequent publications have contributed to updating the checklist.

The Red List is the list of those taxa of the vascular flora of Andorra that are at a more or less significant risk of extinction, and for which their degree of threat is indicated. The classification by degree of threat of the flora species on the red list of the flora of Andorra follows the IUCN criteria and categories at regional and national level (IUCN, 2012). The starting Red List (Carrillo et al., 2008) consisted of 346 taxa (CR, EN, VU and DD).

The book is currently out of print, but you can download it digitally here.

With the constant updating of knowledge, new taxa can be added to the current red list or excluded from it. The threat category of taxa can also change (depending on whether the degree of threat increases or decreases).

Currently and since 2009, Andorra Research + Innovation (previously as the Institut d'Estudis Andorrans) is responsible for following and re-evaluating the most threatened taxa of the Andorran flora and incorporating new species previously undetected into the checklist, which has made it possible to establish specific monitoring projects (see the FLORALAB or FLORAPYR projects, for example) or to be able to support the Ministry of Environment and Sustainability of the Government of Andorra in terms of the preparation of recovery plans, the biodiversity conservation regulations, and keep knowledge on this field up to date.

 

---

In 2021, the Andorran Flora Master List was published, which brings together the information relating to the species found so far in the territory (Check-list) and the aspects that have to do with their state of conservation and the regulation that applies to them. It currently consists of 1.604 different taxa, 309 of which are in some threat category (CR, EN or VU) and 54 in the Data Deficient (DD) category.

It can be consulted below.

Andorran Flora Master List 2021