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Policy on Transplanting

Adopted December 1989 (PDF Version)

Native plants, plant communities and their habitats on public and private lands are subject to increasing development and use pressures. Little scientific information is available on the long-term success of transplanting to mitigate impacts on the plants. The preponderance of evidence to date demonstrates that transplanting naturally occurring wild plants does not represent a successful method of long-term conservation.

Therefore --The California Native Plant Society requests all responsible agencies and persons involved with the maintenance of biological diversity and rare plant protection to:

1. Develop and implement alternate strategies of plant and plant community protection that are realistic, well documented through long term monitoring, and aimed at the continued success of establishing and enhancing viable populations of rare plants, plant communities, and their habitats, and
2. Use transplanting of such plants only as a mitigation method of last recourse.