Project MGU - the Useful Plants Project

The purpose of this project is to improve the welfare of local communities and safeguard useful important plants from extinction in Latin America and Africa.

Community project nursery in Tharaka, Kenya (Image: T. Ulian, RBG Kew)

Many inhabitants in developing countries depend directly on natural vegetation for everyday needs such as food, medicine, fuel and building materials. Plants are faced with a range of threats that include climate change, over-exploitation, and shortage of water, habitat loss and invasion of exotic species.

Project MGU - the Useful Plants Project, aims to enhance the ex situ conservation of native useful plants for human wellbeing by building the capacity of local communities to successfully conserve and use these species sustainably.

Working with the Millennium Seed Bank Partnerships in Botswana, Kenya, Mali, Mexico and South Africa, the main components of the project include: targeting and prioritizing native useful plants; seed collecting and conservation; plant propagation and planting; capacity building and plant conservation in local rural communities; and research to support to in situ conservation and sustainable use of priority useful plants.

Over a thousand plants (1223 taxa) have been identified so far through research and by engaging local communities. The seeds of 630 useful plant species have been collected and conserved in country with duplicates stored in Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank. Of these, 513 have been tested and germinated and 194 propagation protocols have been developed. The capacity of 12 local communities to conserve and use sustainably a wide range of plant species has been enhanced through training and the improvement of local facilities: 19 useful plants gardens have been established and 9 plant nurseries enhanced in the local communities. Over one hundred species (132 taxa) have been propagated and/or planted in the communities.

Research has been carried out on 168 useful plant species and has included ethnobotanical, phytochemical, plant physiological and plant population studies, DNA profiling and in vitro propagation. Information about the use, conservation and propagation of the species has been compiled in leaflets, booklets, technical information sheets and posters and disseminated in country in order to conserve the associated traditional knowledge and safeguard them. In addition, the project has been successfully working with 12 schools in the villages and has led to the establishment of environmental clubs, school plant nurseries and gardens.

All the targets sets for the first phase (2007-2010) were exceeded and a second phase is being developed to enhance the conservation of native useful plants in the communities, as well as to promote the generation of income through a sustainable use of the plants or the production of plant products. It aims also to scale up and to expand the project to a total of 28 communities and 39 schools in the countries involved, as well as to link to existing species reintroduction and reforestation programmes.

The project began in June 2007 from a proposal made to Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank by a philanthropist based in Spain. The name MGU reflects the generous support provided by this philanthropist for the work of the Useful Plants Project.

Key papers published since 2006

• Albino-García, C., H. Cervántes, M. López, L. Ríos-Casanova & R. Lira. (2011). Patrones de diversidad y aspectos etnobotánicos de las plantas arvenses del Valle deTehuacán-Cuicatlán: el caso de San Rafael, Municipio de Coxcatlán, Puebla. Revista Mexicana deBiodiversidad.
• Lira, R., A. Casas, R. Rosas-López, M. Paredes-Flores, E. Pérez-Negrón, S. Rangel-Landa, L. Solís, I. Torres & P. Dávila (2009). Traditional knowledge and useful plants richness in the Tehuacán–Cuicatlán Valley, México. Economic Botany 63: 271-287.
• Serrano, R., T. Hernández, M. Canales, A. M. García-Bores, A. Romo De Vivar, C. L. Céspedes & J. G. Avila (2009). Ent-Labdane type Diterpene with antifungal activity from Gymnosperma glutinosum (Spreng.) Less. (Asteraceae). Boletín Latinoamericano y del Caribe de Plantas Medicinales y Aromáticas. 8: 412-418.