Wet Tropics: Africa

Recent Achievements

Team Projects

Collections (2001-2005)

Over the last five years some 6,850 collections, usually in sets of about five, mostly from Cameroon, have been made as part of the surveys of the protected areas tabulated below, the most recent of which concluded in November 2005.

Areas surveyed in the Wet Tropics Africa 2001-2005:

Year

Survey Area (Those in bold are extra-Cameroon)

2001

Bali Ngemba & Northern Bakossi Mts (Oct-Nov)

2002

Bali Ngemba & Ijim (April-May) and Mefou (Oct)

2003

Nyandong in W Bakossi (March)

2004

Mefou, Bali Ngemba and Fosimondi (April-May)

2005

Gabon (Jan); Congo-Brazzaville (Jan); Kupe/Bakossi, Ebo, Dom, Fosimondi (Apr-May); Guinea-Conakry-Simandou (Nov)

All of these specimens are databased. Many have associated photographic, carpological, and spirit collections, and notes on local names and uses. Many also have associated silica gel and wood collections. About 1,700 fungal collections are held at Kew from Cameroon, dating back to 1894. About half of these are on the Mycology database. Additional specimens have been donated for naming by collaborators in countries such as Nigeria, Cameroon, The Gambia, Congo-Brazzaville and the Central African Republic.

Baseline Plant Diversity Research (2001-2005)

Outputs from these surveys appear in the Wet Tropics Africa list of publications. These are mainly in the form of publications of new species or studies of sites of particular interest.

Major publications have been: The Plants of Bali Ngemba Forest Reserve: A Conservation Checklist (published December 2004); and The Plants of Kupe, Mwanenguba and Bakossi Mountains: A Conservation Checklist (published December 2004).

These books enumerate all the vascular plant species known from the protected areas concerned. They also include detailed assessments of the Red Data species present, supplemented with management suggestions, making them key outputs for the conservation and monitoring (see below) side of the Wet Tropics Africa team. This information on conservation-priority species is intended in the first instance for those managing these protected or potentially protected areas at the local level and at the national level. However, these books are also vital for promoting the importance of the areas they concern to sponsors, Government officials and local communities and for engaging interest and support from these quarters. The books also provide a vehicle for publications of family accounts by up-and-coming Cameroonian botanists. To the international audience the books provide specimen-based species records for those plotting species distributions or assessing species diversity patterns. They also contain information on vegetation types, climate, plant geography, etc. that is necessary for understanding the context in which the flora occurs

The Cameroon Database. This comprises a plant and fungal specimen database and a species database in customised Access software that is RBG Kew core-field compliant and was developed in 1999 by George Gosline. Before this date we used the Botanical Research and Herbarium Management System (BRAHMS). The database is central to Kew’s Wet Tropics Africa programme. Future conservation checklists will continue to be generated directly from the database. The main features are tabulated below. In addition 2,151 specimens from Cameroon are documented on the API (African Plants Initiative) system which seeks to make available over the net digitised images of key specimens of plants, especially of types.

Main Features of the Cameroon database:

64,000

Georeferenced specimen records

21,826

Bar-coded specimens at RBG Kew

4,740

Verified checklist level taxon records

1,567

Specimens with local names and uses

 

Comparative Plant Biology (2001-2005)

Our highest priority in Cameroon is conservation-focused botanical inventory, and not comparative biology. However, fieldwork provides opportunities to conduct studies on plant groups that are not possible in the Herbarium and Kew botanists have taken advantage of this (Mackinder, legume nitrogen assimilation studies with Nwaga and Kiam, Univ.Yaoundé, and revision of Berlinia (Leguminosae-Caesalpinoideae); Rønsted, molecular phylogeny of African Ficus (Moraceae); Salazar and Roberts, Orchidaceae; Baena, forest-change GIS analysis; Gosline, revision of Octoknema; Cheek, e.g. monographic studies of rheophytes with Swaine, Univ. Aberdeen, and Ameka, Univ. Ghana; saprophytes with Paula Rudall). Pollination biology, intra-populational variation and tree root observations are examples of studies conducted that would be impossible in the Herbarium.

One ongoing project is the reassessment of the classification of endemic tropical African plant families, all of which, except Barbeyaceae (Somalia) are restricted to the Wet Tropics. Owing to difficult access to recent material with viable DNA, several of such families had remained unplaced in APG (Angiosperm Phylogeny Group). Pre-2001 we secured material from Cameroon of Huaceae (maintained as an independent family) and Octoknemataceae (now sunk in Olacaceae). Post 2001 we secured material of Medusandraceae. Molecular evidence acquired by Savolainen and colleagues has shown that this latter is an unnatural assemblage. While Medusandra itself can be maintained as a monogeneric family in the Passiflorales, Soyauxia has been placed with Peridiscaceae of S America, in the Saxifragales. Silica gel material of Hoplestigmaceae, possibly the last unsampled vascular plant family, has now been obtained and awaits analysis.

Our greatest contribution to the field of comparative biology has been to facilitate the work of other researchers who would not otherwise be able to study their groups in W and C Africa, and supplying material for comparative biology studies, for example of endemic genera/families for molecular work. We are able to help provide such researchers with national research permits, clearance with local projects and communities, Cameroonian collaborators, and with research assistants to locate and introduce them to their subject material in the forest quickly and efficiently and with a stable field base. Researchers in comparative plant biology whom we have supported since 2000 include those tabulated below.

Foreign researchers in Comparative Biology who have joined Kew-HNC surveys:

Year

Researchers

2001

Dr Lou Fay (retired), USA, Pteridophytes; Rolland Ranaivojaona, Jeanne Norosoarinaivo, Madagascar

2002

Dr Alex Asase, Univ. Legon, Ghana, surveying techniques; Dr Richard Brinklow, Aberdeen Museum, forest cryptogams.

Dr Alex Wortley, Univ. Oxford, U.K., Thomandersia, Acanthaceae; Dr Gabriel Ameka, Univ. Legon, Ghana and Dr Rolf Rutishauser, Univ. Zurich (both Podostemaceae); Dr Lou Fay (see 2001)

2003

Dr Doug Stone, Univ. California, Memecylon

2004

Dr Celia Cabral, Univ. Coimbra, essential oils of Vitex; Dr Lou Fay (see 2001); Dr Brinklow (see 2002); Anna Saltmarsh, Univ. Montpellier, extra-floral nectaries of Leonardoxa

2005

Dr Fay (see 2001)

 

Sustainable Utilisation of Plant Resources (2001-2005)

Our main activity in this programme is identification of sites where unsustainable utilisation of plant resources should cease, or be modified in order to protect endangered plant species or communities.

We have initiated the development of a scheme to provide revenue to communities protecting their own forests in NW Province in Cameroon through the conservation NGO ANCO (Apicultural & Nature Conservation Organisation). We envisage that sustainably harvested, dried forest fruits will be sold by Kew, the profits being returned by ANCO to the harvesters, providing them with a return for protecting their forests.

In conducting our inventories we have collected a substantial quantity of specimen-linked primary data on local names and uses of wild plants and now have separate fields for these in our database. We are well placed to gather such data, being usually based for two weeks or more at a time in traditional rural communities while conducting our inventories. This facilitates building a rapport with the community from which we recruit our guides. It also allows validation of data by cross-referencing with other sources. Interrogation of the database shows that currently we have records of either local names/uses or both for 1,567 specimens. The actual total is far higher but obscured by the fact that in the early stages of the Cameroon Programme, such data was entered into a general notes field and has not yet been transferred. Ethnobotanical research is an aspect that we hope to develop further in future.

Kew became a collaborating partner of the PROTA (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa) Foundation  (co-ordinated by Wageningen University, The Netherlands) in 2000. PROTA is concerned with collecting and facilitating access to data on the 7000 useful plants/ species of the tropical African region.

Conservation and Environmental Monitoring (2001-2005)

This is the main purpose of our work in the Wet Tropics of Africa. There is no doubt that our work has made a difference to plant conservation in Cameroon. We can cite examples that show that our data have been used to support the official protection or upgrade the protection status, of several areas. We can also show that we have reduced the threat to several rare species and enabled conservation projects to educate local communities to conserve what is most endangered, and also to obtain funding. This has been done by providing information to such projects, and also more directly by producing species-specific conservation posters, giving presentations to local communities and renting threatened plant sites from local owners.

At the National level we have contributed data to Cameroon’s National Strategy for the Conservation of Biodiversity (drafted 1999, awaiting ministerial ratification 2005).

We have also provided more IUCN Red Data assessments of Cameroonian plant species (c. 450) than any other single organisation.

Examples of where Kew data have helped establish newly protected areas include the following:

1. In SW Province Cameroon four new sites in the Kupe-Bakossi area have been accepted (2004/2005) by the Government of Cameroon for protection based in part upon data on the endemic and threatened plant species, supplied by our work with the Herbier National Camerounais (HNC). These are:

Site

Proposed Status

Size (Ha)

Bakossi Mts

National Park

76,551

Mt Mwanenguba

Integrated Ecological Reserve

5,252

Mt Kupe

Integrated Ecological Reserve

4,676

Lake Edib

Integrated Ecological Reserve

80

 2. In NW Province Cameroon, the forest around Lake Oku has been designated as a “Plant Sanctuary” by the Government of Cameroon on the basis of our survey work with HNC over a larger area there, published in 2000 as a conservation checklist.

Cataloguing diversity. Many of the species that we collect in the course of our inventory work are unknown to science. In 2004 we publicised the news that we had in recent years published 50 new species of flowering plant from Cameroon. This featured very widely in the British press after appearing in The Times. A high proportion of the Red Data species that we document are local endemics uncovered as new to science or rediscovered from among our collections. A large proportion of the publications resulting from our Cameroon programme describe new species or revise species-groups. In some species-rich yet poorly surveyed areas, such as Mt Kupe, as many as 10% of the specimens collected have proven to be new species to science.

A new centre of plant diversity. In 2005 we publicised the discovery of a new centre of plant diversity once the total number of species that we had recorded from Mt Kupe and the Bakossi Mts in western Cameroon (2,440 taxa) had passed that of all other previously documented centres of plant diversity in tropical Africa. The area also has more documented strict endemic species (82) and more Red Data taxa (232) than any other of the tropical African centres. Before we began our survey work at Mt Kupe in 1995, only 130 species had been listed, and no strict endemics had been documented; the Bakossi Mts being botanically unknown (see Kupe-Bakossi project).

Botanic Gardens. Although our main partners are national herbaria, we also have links with three old, formerly colonial Botanic Gardens, with which we have or are assisting, with their redevelopment as centres for environmental education. These Botanic Gardens are: Camayenne, in Conakry (Guinea-Conakry: see Project on Guinea), Calabar, Nigeria and Limbe, Cameroon.

Capacity building and training. Supporting and strengthening the National Herbarium of Cameroon (HNC) is an important part of Kew’s role in Cameroon. The task of defining the units of plant diversity, mapping them, monitoring them, and providing the means to identify them is their key role. Pre-2001, with GEF support, we helped achieve for HNC: repair work and overhauling of the herbarium building, publication of papers by HNC staff in western peer-reviewed journals, grant funding to double the number of technicians and researchers for 3-4 years, to purchase new furniture, to fund overseas visits abroad of HNC staff botanists, to obtain the first ever HNC computers and email access, the resurrection of the Flore Du Cameroun programme (it had been moribund for several years), two 4WD field vehicles and so enable the first independent HNC expeditions in many years. We have also arranged workshops at HNC on specimen databasing and training in the field on conducting botanical inventories for conservation management.

Since 2001 we have built on the foregoing.  We continued supporting HNC with Darwin Initiative and Bentham-Moxon funding. This has mainly taken the form of further support for visits of HNC staff and associates to RBG Kew, further collaborative fieldwork in Cameroon and further support for publications of HNC staff in peer-reviewed journals.

In 2002, with funding from BAT and hosting from HNC in Yaoundé, Kew ran a two week training course in Herbarium Techniques (in French) for herbarium technicians from W and C Africa and from Cameroon. Eight RBG Kew staff participated in teaching.

In 2003, with funding from the Darwin Initiative, we ran a training workshop in the assessment of conservation threats for plant species using IUCN (2001) standards, again with hosting by HNC in Yaoundé.

In 2005 we helped HNC in their successful approach for a grant from the African Plant Initiative (API) to digitise for the web (Aluka) their type specimens and endemic species. This has helped support 3 HNC researchers as well as bringing equipment and software to HNC. In addition, HNC’s capacity to seek, manage and execute grant-funded work has been substantially enhanced.

Apart from HNC staff, and the staff of whichever conservation project is hosting us during field surveys, we have also trained and financially supported (within the limits of our budget) botanists from other institutes in Cameroon that have joined our surveys. These include both lecturers, students and volunteers, a selection of whom are indicated in the table below.

Botanists from Cameroon who have been supported on Kew-HNC surveys 2001-2005:

Louis Zapfack

Lecturer, Univ. Yaoundé I

Placide Simo

PhD student, Univ. Yaoundé I

Walters Etuge

Student, Univ. Buea

Elvire Biye

Lecturer, Univ. Yaoundé I

Bonaventure Sonké

Lecturer, Ecole Normale Superieur, Yaoundé I

Dieudonné Nwaga

Lecturer, Univ. Yaoundé I

Hermine Kiam

PhD student, Univ. Yaoundé I

Kenneth Tah

Volunteer with BHFP (Bamenda Highlands Forest Project) (NGO)

Dorisse Jiofak

PhD student, Univ. Yaoundé I

Gilbert Todou

PhD student, Univ. Yaoundé I

Terence Suinyuh

Volunteer with BHFP (NGO)

2002 saw the conclusion of a very successful programme in which the Earthwatch Institute, Europe, provided funds to support training for African botanists and conservationists with us in Cameroon since 1995. Over 130 nationals from Ghana, Nigeria, Congo-Kinshasa, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Madagascar and Namibia have participated. Between five and eight trainees joined us for two-week periods that gave training in conducting botanical inventories for conservation management. These structured courses provided in-the-field training in a range of skills including specimen collecting techniques, recording voucher data, databasing techniques, and use of associated equipment and literature, from keys to GPS units. Presentations were given on the methods of conducting inventories, the need for them and how one goes about identifying a Red Data taxon. We also gave training in plant family recognition and arranged lectures by specialists on different families or genera.  As far as we are aware, the first lectures in Cameroon on cladistics and molecular techniques (as applied to botany) were given on these courses.

An added benefit of these training programmes was that they enabled specialists from institutions in eastern Africa to study their family/genus of expertise in the field in West-central Africa. Generally it was relatively easy for such scientists to obtain funds to journey to Europe/USA, but almost impossible to go to other parts of Africa for fieldwork. These expeditions also provided the opportunity for African and western botanists to work as equals and build lasting collaborations. One former participant, Geoffrey Mwachala of the Kenyan National Herbarium, applied for a grant from Earthwatch to conduct a similar inventory programme in the Taita Hills of Kenya. This was supported and has now been running, to the great satisfaction of Earthwatch, for several years.