Community For The Conservation & Research Of Rafflesia
Community for the Conservation and Research of Rafflesia (CCRR)
The CCRR is made up of academic biologists, foresters, researchers and community practitioners around the world who work on Rafflesia.
Our vision is to understand and conserve the world’s largest flowers. To enable this vision, we are building an international community of purpose to develop, share and deploy best practice.
Our aims are to:
Facilitate knowledge exchange among academics, researchers and community conservation practitioners
Realise income from ecotourism and other initiatives to support community-level conservation on the ground
Raise awareness to support future protection of a culturally significant plant
In delivering against these aims, ultimately our goal is to create the first ever Rafflesia conservation working group: sharing knowledge, tools and best practice.
Rafflesia: the world's largest flower
Rafflesia is the genus containing the world’s largest flowers. Despite their global appeal, most of the 42 known species are now at risk of extinction. An estimated 60% of Rafflesia species now face a severe risk of extinction (equivalent to Critically Endangered [CR]). Moreover, 67% of known habitats fall outside protected areas, exacerbating their vulnerability. Urgent action is needed to protect these remarkable flowers, and requires international collaboration and knowledge exchange to enable habitat protection and support for local community action groups.
