Kew's Millennium Seed Bank partnership - our projects in Africa

Kew supports partners across the continent to collect the seeds of plants under threat and look after habitats most at risk. We use the plant specimen collections located in Kew’s herbarium, together with other information sources, to work out the species and regions in most need of protection.

07 Sep 2009

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MSB Seed collecting Burkina Faso

Seed collecting Burkina Faso, one of the many regions in Africa that the MSBP work in (Image: Andrew McRobb, RBG Kew)

Plants provide habitats and food for all living creatures and underpin a healthy environment and ecosystem.

Human activity is one of the contributing factors to the diminishing numbers of plants in Africa. This includes the clearing of large areas of vegetation, the use of plants without replacing them and the consequences of climate change on the stability of plant life and habitats worldwide. 

About Kew's Millennium Seed Bank partnership | Visit us

Our projects and partners across Africa

Kew's Millennium Seed Bank partnership works with partners to save plant life and habitats at risk in a number of countries in Africa. Our work also helps local communities make the most of their natural resources - plants for food, medicine, fuel, building materials and earning a living. The regions we work in include Botswana, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Namibia, Republic of South Africa and Tanzania. 

Our work in the Republic of South Africa

Our partnership in the Republic of South Africa aims to collect around 250 species new to Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank each year.

The large and unique flora of the Republic of South Africa needs no introduction. There are more than 24,000 species, thousands of which can only be found in South Africa. Nearly 400 species are classified as vulnerable, or endangered on the national Red Data List.

Some great achievements have been made since we started seed collecting and banking in South Africa in 1996. A collection of more than 1,100 species has been conserved and documented of which more than 80% are rare, threatened or of particular use to man.

Our work in the Republic of South Africa

Our project in Malawi

Our project in Malawi also involves saving seeds for the future. We aim to collect about 500 wild species that are threatened, exclusively found in Malawi and of economic value. These seed collections are securely stored in the Malawi Seed Bank and at Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst Place.

Conservationists at Kew are helping to improve Malawi’s seed banking facilities. New equipment has been installed at the National Tree Seed Centre and the National Plant Genetic Resources Centre, and staff from Kew staff have provided training on how to use it.

Our work in Malawite now: Help Kew save the worlds plant life for the futu

Get involved - Adopt a Seed, Save a Species

Without plants there could be no life on earth, and yet every day another four plant species face extinction. Too often when we hear these kind of statistics there is little that we can do as individuals, but thanks to Kew's Millennium Seed Bank partnership and the Adopt a Seed, Save a Species campaign there is something that you can do to ensure the survival of a plant species.

Save a plant species outright or adopt a seed for just £25 

Discover more about our work in Africa...

Interactive map - Explore Kew's MSBP around the world

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