PHARMACEUTICAL BOTANY - 2013

Chapter V. PROTECTION OF THE VEGETATION COVER

The plant kingdom plays a vital role in the existence and functioning of the biosphere and human life. The accumulation of oxygen on Earth began only with the advent of green plants. Through Photosynthesis, plants release oxygen into the atmosphere and absorb carbon dioxide. The Role of green plants in creating favorable conditions for human life cannot be overstated.

The plant kingdom encompasses about 500,000 species, of which approximately 300,000 are higher plants. Botanists have established that roughly 30,000 species of higher plants are currently under threat of extinction. Naturally, as the green surface area of the vegetation cover decreases, The amount of oxygen in the atmosphere also declines while carbon dioxide levels rise. Consequently, every tenth species on Earth is in need of protection.

“It is not without reason,” wrote the Russian plant physiologist S. P. Kostychev, characterizing The activity of green leaves, “that should green leaves cease their work for just a few years, all living inhabitants of the globe, including all of humanity, would perish.”

Plants purify Water and air basins from harmful impurities generated by industrial enterprises and automotive engines, as well as by the excessive and careless use of chemical products. They absorb and neutralize sulfur, carbon, and nitrogen oxides, mutagenic and carcinogenic substances, and trap dust particles, thereby standing as a reliable shield for human health.

Plants participate in regulating the water cycle on our planet, thus exerting a beneficial influence on the climate.

Humanity has long been aware of its dependence on the plant world. Even in the times of the pharaohs in Ancient Egypt, trees were held in special reverence. Among numerous peoples, the largest and most majestic trees were proclaimed sacred; harming them was considered a grave sin and punished severely. METABOLISM/2.html">THE CONCEPT OF tree preservation lies at the ROOT of many ancient beliefs and tales. In the past, numerous food, medicinal, ornamental, and poisonous plants were deemed divine and dedicated to specific deities. To some extent, all of this contributed to their preservation in nature.

However, it must be stated that today certain endangered plants have become extremely rare. One of the reasons for plant extinction is associated with human economic activity: land plowing, livestock grazing, marsh drainage, the construction of cities and industrial enterprises, airfields, highways, railways, power transmission lines, and oil and gas pipelines. All of this leads to the alienation of areas previously occupied by natural vegetation. As a result, certain plant species are gradually disappearing.

For instance, feather grass (Stipa) is characteristic of steppes. Due to the plowing of lands in the steppe zone, the population of these plants has sharply declined. True steppe areas today have survived only in nature reserves, and consequently, feather grass—the primary creator of Ukrainian chernozems—is vanishing.

Today, feather grass species are disappearing across the entire territory of Ukraine, serving as relics of steppe vegetation. Being attractive ornamental plants, their infructescences are widely used for dry bouquets, which leads to their mass harvesting in spring.

The extinction of A number of plant species is also driven by the pollution of the atmosphere and hydrosphere, the degradation of the soil cover, and the disruption of biological system stability. Certain species with reduced adaptive capacities perish, unable to adapt to changing environmental conditions or withstand competition from

other species. This applies particularly to plants occupying limited geographical areas—endemics.

Due to their extreme ecological specialization, they are highly vulnerable and therefore require special attention.

Efforts to preserve our green wealth brook no delay. Stanford University researcher P. Ehrlich argued in 1984 that the loss the biosphere would suffer over the next two centuries would be comparable to the catastrophe that occurred 65 million years ago. At that time, in the Late Cretaceous period, 52% of all marine Organism species and a significant proportion of terrestrial inhabitants, notably including the dinosaurs, became extinct. Such a prediction appears highly realistic.

From the Stone Age to the atomic era, human adaptive capacity has changed very little. Therefore, scientists conclude that our biological and emotional needs require humanity not to destroy the environment, but rather to preserve harmony and balance within it. For this reason, all changes in nature can be evaluated and predicted solely from an ecological perspective.

According to experts, many diseases such as malignant neoplasms, Disorders of the nervous and cardiovascular systems, digestive Organs, and others are linked to the disruption of the natural environment in which humans live.

Long-term human impact on the vegetation cover has led to its alteration, transformation, and, in some cases, complete destruction. The history of forest utilization

is a prime example of how human influence can alter or ruin the green canopy of the Earth.

Around major cities and industrial centers, the floral species composition is becoming impoverished, with early spring ornamental plants experiencing particularly intensive and mass destruction. Among the factors significantly impacting floristic composition, overgrazing and fires occupy leading positions. A natural plant community

is an assemblage of many plant species whose quantitative and qualitative composition is not random. It is the result of a long-term natural and historical development shaped by climate, soil, and fauna. Such a Selection of species exists in the most rational harmony with the environment and is therefore the most productive for any given specific territory. Irrational logging, fires, and trampling, combined with climatic factors, disrupt this Stability of the plant community, impair its integrity, and reduce its productivity. Considerable damage is inflicted on the vegetation cover by the burning of dead plant residue on pastures and hay meadows, as it quantitatively and qualitatively alters plant communities. Thus, millennia of human impact on the vegetation cover have led to the replacement of natural plant communities with artificial, less productive ones, to the alteration of entire landscapes, and to the disappearance of plant communities and individual plant species that are lost forever to future generations.

Among All living organisms inhabiting our Earth, plants are the most defenseless creatures in the face of advancing technological progress. They are the least mobile and, most importantly, have a limited choice of new habitats for successful reproduction. Nor are they able to adapt to the harmful impacts of industrialization, which is why certain species are gradually disappearing from the flora.

Science has established that no human effort can yet recreate destroyed species today, because the plant of each species possesses a specific molecular Structure. Millions of years of Evolutionary Processes were required to create it. The realization of this fact places a profound moral obligation upon humanity to preserve all existing plant species on Earth. These are the foundational principles of the movement for the protection of rare and endangered species, which has swept through the scientific community in most countries of the world. Plant organisms serve as objects of scientific research and discovery—natural models of phenomena that science must unravel in the future and apply in practice. Today, no one

can claim that a particular species will not bring immense practical utility in the future that cannot yet be foreseen. After all, many wild plant species have not yet revealed their potential scientific and practical significance to humanity. Moreover, the destruction of any species entirely precludes such Prospects.

For science, rare and endangered plant species are important primarily as objects for studying and understanding the plant world as a whole, its origins, formation, and development. The general Biological Significance of individual plant species manifests in many aspects.

Rare and endangered plant species are of great importance for biological science in general and botany in particular. Many questions regarding plant phylogeny, systematics, and geography would remain unresolved if botanists did not have access to the full diversity of plant species across their distribution ranges.

Individual plant species are also of great significance for various sectors of the national economy. Despite the intensive development of chemistry, plants remain the primary source of medicinal raw Materials (such as spring pheasant's eye, valerian species, belladonna, mountain arnica, yellow gentian, and many others).

Food plants—such as legumes, fruit and berry crops, cereals, and others—have occupied a vital place in human life since the Stone Age. Various forage plants of our meadows and pastures are of paramount importance for animal husbandry. No matter what level of advancement science and technology may reach, it is hardly likely that natural forage lands and pastures can ever be replaced by cultivated or synthetic feeds in the future. Today, it is still difficult to fully assess the riches hidden within the vast group of lower plants, such as Algae, Fungi, Lichens, and mosses. Their potential as plant-based raw materials remains largely underutilized. Out of approximately 300,000 known species of higher vascular plants on Earth, humans utilize barely more than one percent.

Rare Plants of Ukraine possess immense cognitive and aesthetic value. They are the pearls of the plant world, the adornment of our unique landscape, wellsprings concealing countless mysteries yet unsolved by science, and our national heritage. They require and deserve as much careful protection as the most valuable historical and architectural monuments. They are living monuments of nature. Plants are even more precious creations because while architectural monuments can be restored by humans, extinct plant species never can.

Recognizing the profound moral obligation to preserve the life of all living creatures—from the smallest microorganisms and algae to giant trees, regardless of their "usefulness" or "harmfulness"—botanists in many countries have long raised their voices in defense of endangered plant species. Thanks to their efforts, certain plant species were placed under protection as early as the last century.

The loss of any plant species is not merely a reduction in plant diversity; it is a severe blow to a plant family system balanced over many millennia. The more completely we manage to preserve The Diversity of the plant world, the better protected our environment will be.

By the Resolution of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine dated October 29, 1992, the Regulation on the Red Data Book of Ukraine was approved, serving as the primary state document regarding the Protection of the nation's flora and fauna.

The Red Data Book is a list of plant species threatened with complete extinction. It is frequently compared to a traffic light's red signal, warning of danger and demanding careful attention and caution.

The impoverishment of the Earth's flora poses a direct threat primarily to humanity itself, as human life is inextricably linked to the plant world. The 13th edition of the Red Data Book of Ukraine (Volume "Plant Kingdom", 1996) includes 541 species of plants and fungi (comprising 439 vascular species, 28 bryophytes, 17 algae species, 27 lichen species, and 30 fungal species). This document encompasses a significant number of medicinal plants (such as pyramidal anacamptis,

woolly-pod milkvetch, andaceous carline thistle, orchids (all 15 species), lesser butterfly-orchid, green-flowered orchid, fir clubmoss, spiny clubmoss, Carniolan scopolia, yellow and spotted gentians, wild garlic, etc.). The Institute of Ecology of the Carpathians of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine has compiled the "List of Rare, Relict, Endemic, and Peripheral Plant Species of the Ukrainian Carpathians Requiring Protection," which enumerates 408 species of higher spore-bearing and vascular plants. This list served as the foundation for the proposed "Red Data Book of the Ukrainian Carpathians" (1991).

With the aim of protecting natural plant communities, the Ministry of Natural Resources of Ukraine approved the "Regulation on the Green Data Book of Ukraine" by its order of January 19, 1997. It lists 127 rare, endangered, and typical communities of various ranks, providing the rationales and categories for their protection, distribution, and species composition. The National Commission for the Green Data Book of Ukraine continuously develops measures for the conservation and sustainable use of natural plant resources.

The Need for individual protection of specific species has necessitated their inventory, study, and the creation of special registers for those in critical need of conservation to ensure their survival. Furthermore, the extinction of a number of plant species is driven by atmospheric and hydrospheric pollution, soil cover degradation, and the disruption of biological system stability.

Unfortunately, some plant species exist in nature in such negligible quantities that neither nature reserves nor botanical gardens can guarantee their survival; therefore, alternative Methods for preserving plant Gene pools are being developed.

Khortytsia features a miniature representation of all landscape types characteristic of Ukraine: steppe, forest, forest-steppe, ravine and floodplain groves, meadows, and, in the northern part of the island, steep cliffs. The southern part of Khortytsia is an absolute nature reserve zone. Here, occupying a quarter of the island's territory, the remnants of once-boundless Dnieper floodplain forests are preserved untouched.