Restoring habitats to improve quality of life and secure our future

Restoring damaged habitats is becoming ever more important. The loss of ecosystem services from degraded habitats is a significant barrier to achieving international goals to reduce poverty, hunger and disease.

Through it's Western Australian partners, the MSB is working with the ALCOA mining company in Australia. The photograph shows original forest behind current strip-mining activity for Bauxite (aluminium ore).

Seed banks support habitat restoration in many ways. Seed collections are used directly in restoration projects. Seed scientists also provide advice and technical assistance in identifying and monitoring important plant populations and collecting and germinating seeds.

Seed Quest in New South Wales, Australia

SeedQuest NSW is Kew's Millennium Seed Bank partnership project in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The New South Wales seed bank collection has provided seeds from 20 plant species to help the revegetation of the Capertee Valley area.

This activity is part of the national Regent Honeyeater Recovery Program which is helping to save one of the most endangered bird species in Australia. Our revegetation project is introducing species of trees favoured as food by the bird.

The regent honeyeater (Xanthomyza phrygia) is the most endangered species of honeyeater in Australia, with only 1000-1500 individuals remaining. The Capertee Valley is the most important breeding location for this bird. Mugga ironbark (Eucalyptus sideroxylon), yellow box (E. melliodora), white box (E.albens) and river oak (Casuarina cunninghamiana) are important sources of nectar for the regent honeyeater.

Saving seeds in Madagascar

In Madagascar Kew's Millennium Seed Bank partnership is working with Quebec Madagascar Minerals (QMM). Our project is helping QMM to store seed from priority tree species found in the littoral coastal forest area, surrounding a titanium dioxide mine. We also provide information on the germination and propagation needs of different plant species.

The forest, home to at least 40 local endemic plants, is threatened by charcoal makers and logging. These 40 plant species cannot be found anywhere else in the world. Madagascar is one of the world's poorest countries. The local practice of tavy, which involves shifting slash-and-burn cultivation by subsistence communities, also threatens the survival of this habitat.

QMM have collected seeds from priority plant species and are storing them in their own medium-term seed bank on site. Back-up collections are being held Silo National des Graines Forestieres (SNGF) and Kew's Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst Place for long term conservation, ensuring these plant species are saved for the future.

Seeds for Life in Kenya

Our Seeds for Life project in Kenya is working with local communities to carry out a pilot demonstration to rehabilitate degraded forest land in Makueni district.

Using seed collected through Kew's Millennium Seed Bank partnership, the National Museums of Kenya nursery has produced seedlings of indigenous trees and associated species, which were planted out during the November 2006 rains. If successful, the demonstration will be repeated in Mbeere and West Pokot districts.

Makueni is one of the poorest districts in Kenya. Ecological conditions in this semi-arid area are harsh. Rainfall is low and unreliable. Soil and water erosion, overgrazing and tree felling for charcoal and fuelwood are major causes of land degradation. Community-based efforts to rehabilitate degraded lands are important to restore ecosystem services and ensure access to the useful plants that local communities depend upon.

Restoring natural areas at Kenilworth race course in Cape Town, South Africa

In the Republic of South South Africa, Kew's Millennium Seed Bank partnership supported the restoration of the natural areas at Kenilworth race course in Cape Town. The central area of the racecourse contains some of the few remaining remnants of Sand Plain Fynbos vegetation in the Cape Town metropolitan area.

There are 331 plant species found at Kenilworth race course, including six plant species which grow nowhere else in the world. Our efforts our helping to secure the future of these threatened plant species.

Restoring degraded lands in Burkina Faso

In Burkina Faso, our partners are using wild herbaceous plant species in the restoration of degraded lands and improvement of fallows. Centre National de Semences Forestières (CNSF) have helped to identify suitable species, collected, conserved and supplied, tested germination in the laboratory and in the field, and planted out.

The seeds have been provided by CNSF to the farmers, free of charge. Some farmers have planted in lines to reduce run-off water in cultivated fields, and some have been scattered to improve degraded lands.

Re-introducing interrupted brome into the wild in the UK

In the United Kingdom, a seed collection made in 1963 has been used to re-introduce the grass interrupted brome (Bromus interruptus) into the wild. This plant was last seen in the wild in 1971.

In August 2004, 200,000 seeds were sown in a field in Oxfordshire where the plant successfully established and flowered.

Kew’s Grass Garden grows over 550 species of grasses. Our Grass Garden safeguards British grass that is under theat and extinct in the wild, including interrupted brome. The best time to visit Kew's Grass Garden is early summer for the annual grasses and cereals, and autumn and winter for the perennial grasses when these have produced their seedheads.

Seeds of Success in the USA

Our Seeds of Success Program aims to increase the number of species and the amount of native seed available for use in stabilising, rehabilitation and restoration of lands in the USA.

Our partners target collecting at the ecoregion level. In Chicago, we are aiming to collect all species characteristic of the central tallgrass prairie. The tallgrass prairie is one of the world's most threatened habitats, having been reduced to less than 0.01% of its former range. Our work is vital to protect the future of this area.