Life Seedforce is the European project to improve the conservation of 29 native plants of Community interest.
LIFE Seedforce is a project funded by the European Commission through the LIFE programme which, through an integrated approach, aims to recover and reinforce the populations of native Italian plants in danger of extinction thanks to seed banks.
The Life Seedforce Project
Italy hosts a high number of vascular plants of Union interest. Currently 104 plant species are included in the Habitat Directive (92/43/CEE), issued by the European Commission to promote the maintenance of biodiversity through the conservation of natural habitats on European territory.
According to the latest Report on the state of implementation of the Directive, 58 of those, included in Annex II, are in unfavorable conditions and show a negative trend.For example, in the Alpine Arc, the dragon’s head (Dracocephalum austriacum), the Ligurian gentian (Gentiana ligustica) and the saxifrage of Mount Tombea (Saxifraga tombeanensis) and in the Mediterranean, the primrose of Cape Palinuro (Primula palinuri), the lion’s mouth of Linosa (Linaria pseudolaxiflora), the Aeolian gorse (Cytisus aeolicus), the giant fern of Sicily (Woodwardia radicans) and the Sardinian currant (Ribes sardoum) are in an unfavourable state and the current trend indicates a clear deterioration in the future.
LIFE SEEDFORCE – Using SEED banks to restore and reinFORCE the endangered native plants of Italy (LIFE20 NAT/IT/001468), a project funded by the European Commission through the LIFE programme, with a total budget of around € 7.8 million, was set up to respond to this emergency. It aims to restore and strengthen endangered populations of native plants through the activity of seed banks.
The project is led by the Trento Science Museum (MUSE) and involves 15 partners from 10 Italian regions (Abruzzo, Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Liguria, Lombardy, Sardinia, Sicily, Trentino-Alto Adige, Veneto), as well as from France (Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur), Malta and Slovenia. It was officially launched in October last year and is in place until the end of 2026.
Project objectives
The SEEDFORCE main goal is to improve the conservation status of 29 Annex II species with an Unfavourable-Inadequate (19) or Unfavourable-Bad (10) conservation status occurring in 76 Natura 2000 SCI/SACs.
‘For the first time, a Life project that acts as a system on a national and international level is taking action to save the most endangered plants,’ explains Costantino Bonomi, Botanical Conservator at MUSE. Thanks to an integrated approach, the project will allow us to eliminate or mitigate threats to 139 populations of the project’s target species through the translocation of more than 25,000 new individuals, bred in the nursery and laboratory, which will help to strengthen the populations and bring the species out of the isolation that currently threatens them with extinction..
