The Welsh mountain ponies play an important role in sustaining the diversity of plants, insects and birds on the fragile landscape.

BBC: Bad weather kills half of Welsh wild pony herd

The park covers more than 800 square miles in the Southern Appalachian Mountains and boasts a diversity of plants and animal life, and is known for its beauty.

CNN: Crews search Smoky Mountain wilderness after deadly storm

"Many economies remain blind to the huge value of the diversity of animals, plants and other lifeforms and their role in healthy and functioning ecosystems, " said Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (Unep).

BBC: Nature loss 'to damage economies'

Because the link between people and plants is so fundamental to the conservation of both biological and cultural diversity, it concentrates on the core of our capacity building: training in applied ethnobotany, providing people with inter-disciplinary skills highly relevant to conservation action.

UNESCO: Natural Sciences

Over the past four years, WildEarth Guardians and another environmental group, the Center for Biological Diversity, have filed petitions to add more than a thousand plants and plants to the endangered species list.

FORBES: Endangered Species Accord Calls a Truce In The Wildlife Wars