Kew's work in Africa

Cameroon

Kew has a special area of expertise in the rainforests of western Cameroon, where most of our current research projects and co-operative ventures are based.

The Cameroon link goes right back to 1861, when Kew’s first director, Sir William Hooker, sent a botanist to explore and collect in the Gulf of Guinea. Since then, the herbarium at Kew has built up an unrivalled reference collection of Cameroon plants – some 50,000 of which are now databased – that has provided the source material for regional floras, botanical accounts, inventories, and practical guidebooks. This wealth of knowledge is now being shared with a new generation of Cameroon biologists keen to continue researching, monitoring, and conserving the extraordinary biodiversity of their rainforest heritage.

A Justicia species (Acanthaceae) from the Bakossi Mountains is among many new species identified in western Cameroon’s major ecological reserve. The programme is supported by Earthwatch and the Darwin Initiative. Ten Cameroonian biologists have been involved in publishing these discoveries with ten from Kew as well as numerous international specialists.

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