State of the World's Plants & Fungi
We publish reports that give our assessment of the current knowledge on the world's plants and fungi.
Kew’s State of the World’s Plants and Fungi project provides assessments of our current knowledge of the diversity of plants and fungi on Earth, the global threats that they face, and the policies to safeguard them.
Produced in conjunction with an international scientific symposium, Kew’s State of the World’s Plants and Fungi 2026 report sets an important international standard from which we can track trends in the global status of plant and fungal diversity.
Since 2016, we have published six reports which you can read below.
State of the World's Plants and Fungi 2026
Read the new report
Our sixth landmark report in the State of the World's series is now live!
Join the symposium
The State of the World's Plants and Fungi symposium returns on Monday 29 June - Wednesday 1 July 2026. Find out more about this year's symposium.
State of the World's Plants and Fungi 2026
Our sixth report in the State of the World’s series launched on 16 June. Subtitled ‘The Digital Biodiversity Revolution’, it reveals the state of global biodiversity and explores how digital tools are now transforming our ability to understand and respond to the climate and biodiversity crises, expose critical gaps in scientific knowledge, and highlight where action is most urgently needed to safeguard plants and fungi.
It is the third report that is accompanied by a full volume of expert-reviewed scientific publications from our partners, the New Phytologist Foundation. Their special collection on ‘Harnessing the Benefits of Specimen Digitisation' includes 52 open-access papers published in the journals New Phytologist and Plants, People, Planet.
Drawing upon the expertise of more than 400 experts from more than 170 institutions across 40 countries the report represents a global collaborative effort and includes quotes from many of the scientists involved in the work. The eleven chapters take an in-depth look at how technology can be nature’s ally, provides new insights into extinction risk, and identifies critical knowledge gaps and complexities as we move through this digital age and how to address them.
We present compelling stories of what we can learn from new sources of data and how these learnings can help us foster future research and conservation.
Download the report
Download the citation
You can download a .ris reference manager file of the citation for the State of the World's Plants and Fungi 2026 report, with all 414 authors listed, from our Research Repository.
Past State of the World's Plants and Fungi Symposia
Accordion
Content
The State of the World's Plants and Fungi 2023 Symposium took place at Kew Gardens and online from 11 to 13 October 2023, in conjunction with the release of the report.
Find out more about the symposium and watch the recordings on demand via the symposium webpage
The 2030 Declaration on Scientific Plant and Fungal Collecting
A key outcome from the 2023 symposium was the 2030 Declaration on Scientific Plant and Fungal Collecting. Having gathered nearly 1,000 signatures from 90 countries, it sets out five commitments to help close critical knowledge gaps in global plant and fungal diversity.
Read the 2030 Declaration on Scientific Plant and Fungal Collecting
State of the World’s Plants and Fungi reports
State of the World's Plants and Fungi 2026
Our sixth report in the State of the World’s series explores how digital tools are now transforming our ability to understand and respond to the climate and biodiversity crises.
State of the World's Plants and Fungi 2023
Our fifth report in the State of the World’s series lays out the current condition of the world’s plants and fungi globally.
State of the World's Plants and Fungi 2020
The fourth report in the State of the World's series which combines both plants and fungi.
State of the World's Fungi 2018
Kew released the first ever State of the World's Fungi report revealing how important fungi are to all life on Earth.
State of the World's Plants 2017
This is the second annual report in which we have scrutinised databases, published literature, policy documents, reports and satellite imagery to provide a synthesis of current knowledge on the world’s plants.
State of the World's Plants 2016
The original State of the World’s Plants report provided, for the first time, a baseline assessment of our knowledge on the diversity of plants on earth, the global threats these plants face, and the policies dealing with them.
Supporters
This year’s publication and symposium have been made possible thanks to gifts in Wills to Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The staff and trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew would like to thank the Sfumato Foundation for generously funding the State of the World’s Plants and Fungi project from 2016 to 2023.
