Supporting climate-resilient sustainable development in Africa

The DEFRA-funded Global Centre on Biodiversity for Climate project: 'Realising the potential of plants as nature-based solutions in African biodiversity hotspots'

A tropical landscape includes a mix of forest, pasture and small homesteads on the edge of a protected area

This project aims to characterise the value of plant biodiversity hotspots by analysing the ecosystem service provisioning of these hotspots, in Ethiopia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Centred on the application of the Important Plant Areas approach and the Kew Tropical Important Plant Areas (TIPAs) programme, this project focuses on in situ conservation and community-based sustainable use and management of wild and agricultural plant bioresources. The ultimate goal, is to positively impact lives, livelihoods, biodiversity, ecosystems, and climate resilience.

Using a multi-disciplinary team from the UK, Ethiopia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, this project will:

  1. Document and evaluate wild and agricultural biodiversity
  2. Advance area-based metrics for plant biodiversity, ecosystem assessment and monitoring to support the fulfilment and reporting of the CBD's Global Biodiversity Framework's area-based targets ('30x30')
  3. Deliver research-based case studies illustrating the potential of plants as nature-based solutions, with documented near-term impact
  4. Enhance policy implementation and impact for plant conservation as well as in-country reporting capability for global agreements
  5. Facilitate knowledge-sharing and build in-country capacity

Plant Life International established the Important Plant Areas (IPAs) system of identifying sites of global importance for plant biodiversity. This provides policy makers with a user-friendly and effective method of assessing plant diversity to better inform conservation and land-use policy, and to prioritise conservation in the areas that contain both globally threatened species and habitats, and/or sites of exceptional botanical richness.

Although areas of botanical richness are not restricted to tropical areas, exceptional species richness is consistently associated with tropical biomes. They provide a barely tapped resource for technological innovations, including but not limited to, medicine, agriculture, food security, water use, and climate resilience in the face of climate change. Therefore, documenting and conserving it, is of utmost importance so that we can protect future applications to our own well-being.

Kew, together with local in-country partners has been focused on documenting TIPAs across the globe since 2015, and this project aims to fill gaps in our documentation of species occurrence and TIPAS of the African continent. By completing the identification of tropical important plant areas (TIPAs) in Ethiopia, Guinea, and initiating identification in Sierra Leone, these areas can be prioritised for in-situ conservation and sustainable utilisation. Moreover, documenting the co-benefits for people of conserving TIPAS.

Strengthening our partnerships and building in-country international capacity in biodiversity assessment and prioritisation will be a central theme throughout the project.
 

Individuals in a seedling nursery
Guinea: Centre Forestier Nzerekore’s new seedling nursery for threatened and socio-economically important species for reforestation in TIPAs sites © CFZ team
Seedlings in a nursery in Guinea
Guinea: Centre Forestier Nzerekore’s new seedling nursery for threatened and socio-economically important species for reforestation in TIPAs sites © CFZ team ​

*Phase 1 = July 2022-March 2023 and Phase 2 = April 2023-March 2024

Project Leaders (Co-principle investigators)

Carolina Tovar (Phase 2 Project Leader; Phase 1)

Iain Darbyshire (Phase 2; Phase 1 Project Leader)

Olwen Grace (Phase 1 Project Leader)

James Borrell (Phase 2 Project Leader; Phase 1)

Project Coordinators

Charlotte Couch (Phase 2; Phase 1)

Kelda Elliott (Phase 2; Phase 1)

Team members

Kew Science:

Amy Barker (Phase 1)

Steven Bachman (Phase 2; Phase 1)

Martin Cheek (Phase 1)

Moabe Fernandes (Phase 2)

Garbriella Hoban (Phase 2; Phase 1)

Sophie Jago (Phase 2; Phase 1)

Joseph Langley (Phase 2)

Isabel Larridon (Phase 1)

Felix Lim (Phase 1)

Henry Miller (Phase 2)

Eimear Nic Lughadha (Phase 2, Phase 1)

Timothy Pearce (Phase 1)

Jack Plummer (Phase 2; Phase 1)

Seth Ratcliffe (Phase 2, Phase 1)

Alexandra Roberts (Phase 2; Phase 1)

Harry Smith (Phase 1)

Vida Svanström (Phase 2; Phase 1)

Joseph White (Phase 2, Phase 1)

Paul Wilkin (Phase 1)

China Williams (Phase 2)

Volunteers

Lynda Murrary (Phase 2; Phase 1)

Jenna Willis (Phase 2; Phase 1)

University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia & the National Herbarium of Ethiopia:

Sebsebe Demissew

Ermias Lulekal

Sileshi Nemomissa

Bezawit Genanaw (Phase 1 intern)

Tesfanesh Ashagre (Phase 1 intern/ Phase 2 RL Workshop Participant)

Hanny Solomon (Phase 1 intern)

Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute:

Feleke Woldeyes

Efrata Waldearegay (Phase 1 intern/ Phase 2 RL Workshop Participant)

Hawassa University, Ethiopia:

Wendawek Mangesha

University of Gamel Abdel Nasser, Guinea & The National Herbarium of Guinea:

Sékou Magassouba

Denise Molmou (Phase 1 intern)

Tokpa Seny Dore (Phase 1 intern)

Nagnouma Conde (Phase 1 intern)

Guinee Ecologie:

Mamadou Diawara

Centre Forestiere Nzerekore, Guinea:

Leonce Mamy

University Of General Lansana Conte Sonfonia, Guinea:

Mamadi Camara

Jonathan Johnny (Phase 1 intern)

Momoh Sesay (Phase 1 intern)

Samuel Sokpo (Phase 1 intern)

Njala University, Sierra Leone & The National Herbarium of Sierra Leone:

Aiah Lebbie

The Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT:

Adam Drucker

The non-Kew collaborators listed are direct collaborators of the project; but we do have other organisations working with us via our direct collaborators.

We are also open to developing new collaborations during the duration of the project. If you are interested in becoming a collaborator, please email James Borrell (j.borrell@kew.org) and Carolina Tovar (c.tovar@kew.org). Thank you!

1. Document and evaluate wild and agricultural biodiversity 

Accelerate Red Listing of priority plant species

  • Ethiopia: Assess all endemics 
  • Guinea: Assess all newly identified endemics 
  • Sierra Leone: Initial assessments 

Identify and map Tropical Important Plant Areas

  • Ethiopia: Create a nationally representative comprehensive set of TIPAs, building on the 9 TIPAs already identified
  • Guinea: Update the nationally representative comprehensive set of TIPAs previously established
  • Sierra Leone: Generate assessments for the first 2 TIPAs 

Develop and trial an Agri-IPAs approach

  • Ethiopia: Develop the method and provide initial set of criteria, models, and maps 
  • Guinea: Apply the newly developed Agri-IPAs approach

Perform an Agricultural Survey of Guinea to generate primary data

Understand spatial trade-offs between agro- and wild biodiversity

Build datasets and mapping of bioresources

2. Advance area-based metrics for plant biodiversity, ecosystem assessment and monitoring to support the fulfilment and reporting of the CBD’s Global Biodiversity Framework’s area-based targets (30x30) 

Create models and maps 

  • Ethiopia: Area of habitat (AOH) maps for all assessed species 
  • Ethiopia: Species Habitat Index (SHI) for 200 endemics
  • Ethiopia: Red List Index (RLI) for 200 endemics with a minimum of three data points (2000, 2010 and 2020). 

Pioneer the application of these new metrics to plants and test the following questions to evidence their potential 

  •  How does improved plant data inform, influence or alter existing designations of priority biodiversity areas (e.g. IPAs and KBAs)?
  •  Can we use the first 200 manually completed extinction risk assessments, to inform extinction risk predictions for the remaining endemic species through a machine learning approach?
  •  Can we characterise the climate and carbon co-benefits of conserving Ethiopia’s rich wild and agrobiodiversity hotspots.

3. Deliver research-based case studies illustrating the potential of plants as nature-based solutions, with documented near-term impact

Case studies relating directly to TIPAs

  • Guinea: Plant nurseries for community livelihood and reforestation of TIPAs (4 nurseries at 2 TIPAs)
  • Guinea: Community plant biodiversity, conservation, and sustainable use and practice awareness training programme ()
  • Guinea: School plant biodiversity, conservation, and sustainable use and practice awareness training programme ()
  • Sierra Leone: Conservation and livelihood potential of implementing sustainable agroforestry practices for Caffea stenophylla and investigating its potential to facilitate the identification of IPAs in Sierra Leone

Case studies relating to livelihood potential and sustainable agrobiodiversity use and management (e.g. species suited to novel value-chain development)

  • Ethiopia: Trialling the Payments for Agrobiodiversity Services programme (An agrobiodiversity focused PES scheme) using Enset, the false banana, as the target crop (please see Incentive mechanisms for agrobiodiversity conservation in Ethiopia | Kew for more detailed information on this project)
  • Ethiopia: Carbon sequestration potential of high agrobiodiversity agricultural and grassland landscapes in Ethiopia
  • Guinea: Café Ziama agroforestry 
  • Guinea: Neocarya macrophylla value chain and market feasibility study
  • Guinea: Survey of ecotourism potential in Fouta Djalon, Guinea
  • Guinea: Edible fungi survey

4. Enhance policy implementation and impact for plant conservation and in country reporting capability for global agreements

Facilitate and help lead ‘stakeholder engagement to maximise policy implementation and impact for plant conservation’ workshops in each partner country, to raise awareness on plant conservation issues, seek to identify solutions, and promote TIPAs as one such solution. 

Build reporting capacity and assess capacity gaps in our partner countries (e.g. CBD and CITES reporting, particularly National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs))

Ensure that the data generated contributes National Ecosystem Assessments, to help leverage external funds from CEPF and GEF. 

Support national-level policy implementation for effective conservation

Ethiopia: Evaluate the effectiveness of protected areas

5. Facilitate knowledge-sharing and build in-country capacity

Early Career Internship Program at Kew (8 weeks)

  • Ethiopia: 5 interns
  • Guinea: 3 interns
  • Sierra Leone: 3 interns

Partner Programme (2 weeks)

  • Ethiopia: 3 partner visits
  • Guinea: 1 partner visit
  • Sierra Leone: 1 partner visit

Training workshops

  • In-country Ethiopian RL workshop (18 participants / 4 days) 
  • UK RL Trainers training workshop (3 participants / 4 days)

UK-based conference ‘Avoiding plant blindness in conservation and 30x30 commitments

GCBC - Global Centre on Biodiversity for Climate (the UK government's Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs-DEFRA)

Resources

Tropical Important Plant Areas Explorer (kew.org)

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species

Related projects

Tropical Important Plant Areas (TIPAs) | Kew

Tropical Important Plant Areas (TIPAs) in Ethiopia | Kew

Tropical Important Plant Areas (TIPAs) in Guinea-Conakry | Kew

Ethiopia bioresources for food security and sustainable development | Kew

Landscape scale genomic-environment data to enhance the food security of Ethiopian agri-systems | Kew

Modelling and genomics resources to enhance exploitation of the sustainable and diverse Ethiopian starch crop Enset and support livelihoods | Kew

Mainstreaming biodiversity conservation and climate resilience at Yayu Biosphere Reserve (Ethiopia) | Kew

Climate change resilience in southern Ethiopian crops | Kew

Building a climate resilient coffee economy for Ethiopia | Kew

‘Forgotten’ coffee species that grows at higher temperatures and boasts a superior flavour could help to futureproof the coffee industry under climate change, says new study | Kew

Guarding Guinea’s biodiversity | Kew

The lost plant species of the Fouta Djallon, Guinea | Kew

Saving Guinea's threatened trees | Kew

Twitter

@KewAfrica

  • The project was renewed for a second phase (April 2023-March 2024), and the activities and outputs reflect development on those from phase 1. The project page was updated on mid-way through phase 2 and reflects these changes and the anticipated delivery by project end.

  • The ‘Avoiding Plant Blindness in conservation & 30x30 commitments: Measures of plant biodiversity, bioresource, and the need for plant-based prioritisation in policy and practice’ conference on the 22nd-23rd of February 2023, convened the leading expertise in bioresources, protected areas, and plant conservation with an attendance of c. 200 across in-person and online platforms.

    The content reflected a culmination of the insight gained throughout the six years of Kew’s TIPAs work, as well as the first phase of the project and had objectives to:

    1) build awareness in plant bioresource assessment and establish a consensus on mainstreaming this information into international conservation and resource planning

    2) bring awareness to the importance of agrobiodiversity and incorporating measures of agrobiodiversity into area-based approaches.