Guarding Guinea’s biodiversity

Following three years of research with local partners, the most threatened habitats in Guinea have been successfully identified.

Covering 3.5 per cent of the country’s surface area and including well over half of its threatened plant species, the identification of these habitats means plant diversity in Guinea will stand a far greater chance of protection.

Known as Tropical Important Plant Areas (TIPAs), a total of 22 have been distinguished in the first phase of the Guinea-Conakry TIPAs project, and are the first of their kind in Africa.

It marks an important step for ensuring the country’s rich botanical diversity is recognised, celebrated and, most importantly, conserved. 

Overwhelming damage

There has been a devastating loss of habitat in Guinea.

Back in 1992, it was reported that 96 per cent of the country’s original forest had been cleared and, over the decades, further losses have continued.

Land is being cleared and trees are being felled for a variety of reasons including plank production, charcoal production, intensive agriculture and mining projects. 

Beyond important ecosystem functions, such as maintaining water sources, Guinea is also losing more and more of its unique plants.

The country is home to more than 250 documented rare and threatened plant species, more than is known for any other country in West Africa.

Among these are the potential for new medicines, materials and foods that could improve the livelihoods of Guineans.

As many as 35 species have not been seen in Guinea for over 50 years raising fears they could be extinct, ranging from trees to minute herbs, daisies, legumes and a clematis.

Twenty-five of these are globally unique to Guinea so these could be global extinctions.

Training the next generation

Kew’s work in Guinea in fact began back in 2005 when the country had very little botanical capacity so building this up has been important for the delivery of the TIPAs programme.

Over the last 14 years we have been helping to develop Guinea’s botanical knowledge by training Guinean botanists and equipping them with the skills needed to identify, map, monitor and manage species under threat.

This has, in part, been delivered through teaching Master’s students how to undertake red listing, seed banking, vegetation surveying, data analysis, as well how to use equipment in the field such as a handheld GPS. 
 

A successful future for Guinea’s biodiversity

This year our team and partners presented the work and key results we’ve achieved to mining companies, national authorities and government officials at a workshop in Guinea.

The head of the Office of National Parks and Reserves, backed by the Minister of the Environment, Water and Forests declared that they will integrate the 22 TIPAs into the National Protected Area network, representing a breakthrough for the future of Guinea’s biodiversity.

With this, we hope to see increased protection and better management of Guinea’s flora which could yield new medicines, materials and foods. But, of course, our work here is not over.

We will be working to make sure the government see through their plan as well continuing to as searching for lost rare species and identify new TIPAs.

We will continue to teach the next generation of botanists and are working with the National Herbarium of Guinea to support three PhD students to work on socioeconomic and underutilised plant and fungal species, to see how they could address food security and alternative incomes in communities near Tropical Important Plant Areas, thereby helping to conserve these threatened habitats.