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Guinea-Conakry: Developing a National Herbarium and Survey of the Simandou Range

Bidens asperata (Compositae). Photo: Y. Harvey.

Guinea-Conakry, on the edge of the Upper Guinea forest area, has the most extensive and geologically diverse upland area in W Africa, W of the Cameroon Highlands. Of these upland areas, both the Fouta Djalon and Mt Nimba are well known for numerous narrow endemic species, such as Pitcairnia feliciana at Fouta, the only Bromeliaceae native outside the neotropics. Guinea-Conakry has no functioning herbarium and no national Flora (although it is hoped that a Flora written by Lisowski in the 1970’s and 1980’s will be published posthumously, soon, in Scripta Botanica Belgica). 

A major focus of RBG Kew’s work in Guinea-Conakry is to facilitate the setting-up of a National Herbarium and to build the capacity of botanists in the country.  Currently there are no plant taxonomists, and the capacity to identify wild plant species is non-existent other than with Berhaut’s Flora of Senegal (which does not include, for example, species of Guinea-Conakry’s montane and wet forest habitats).  RBG Kew is also seeking to support the rehabilitation of the botanic garden at Camayenne, in Conakry, and its use as a centre for environmental activities.

Kew’s work in Guinea-Conakry is funded by a partnership with Rio Tinto, which is seeking permission to extract iron ore from the Simandou Range in Forestière Province.  In 2005 we began to conduct a botanical inventory and vegetation mapping exercise in one part of the range.  This work is aimed at identifying plant species and habitats of conservation importance so as to enable Rio Tinto to minimise the environmental damage that may occur when the mine is set up.  The output of the first phase of the Simandou work was first draft vegetation map for the Pic de Fon area produced in June 2006, with a botanical inventory to follow in July.  It is possible that the survey area will be extended further in the future. Three highly experienced Cameroonian scientists played major roles in both the training and the survey work, working with six Kew staff.

Five Guinean botanists received training in basic plant collection and vegetation mapping techniques in the 2005 botanical inventory work, and one Guinean botanist is currently being trained on a 12-month internship at the Kew Herbarium.

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