African rare plants threatened with extinction

Thousands of plant species in Africa are threatened with extinction, leading botanists meeting in Addis Ababa warned on Tuesday.

As many as 4,500 of Africa’s rare species of flowering plants – the continent has one fifth of the world’s flora - are at risk, international scientists revealed.

And some of the species may be lost forever before they are even discovered, the conference heard. Africa has around 45,000 documented plant specimens.

The scientists are calling for action to prevent the looming catastrophe and warned that undiscovered plants might hold the key to curing cancer or provide vital medicines.

“There is no question about the threat,” Professor Sebsebe Demisse, head of the Ethiopian Flora Project, said.

He warned that the main threat to Africa’s plant life came in the shape of increasing industrialisation and greater need by growing populations for agricultural land.

He called for more plant breeding programmes and urged African governments to take the threat to plant life more seriously.

“We have enough policies but need to put them into action,” Professor Sebsebe added, blaming the ongoing threat on a lack of interest in plant life and a lack of resources.

The conference was organised by the Association for the Taxonomic Studies of the Flora of Tropical Africa (AETFAT). Some 200 scientists representing 35 different countries have gathered in the Ethiopian capital for the AETFAT conference, which takes place every three years.

Sebsebe, who is the general secretary of AETFAT, said the twin spectre of war and famine "often obscures” the immense wealth of plants found “the length and breadth of Africa”.

Ethiopian President Girma Wolde Giorgis, a leading environmental activist, explained how he had seen his own countryside decimated as it was turned into agricultural land.

“During my lifetime I have seen the landscape of Ethiopia literally washed away before my eyes,” the president told the five-day conference.

He said forests had been ravaged as more and more land was turned over for farm use and trees cut down for firewood to meet the demands of the spiralling population.

Almost all of Ethiopia’s natural forests have been wiped out in the last four decades.