Adopt an endangered plant
Comments by: Patrick OmariIf you traveled from central Kenya northwards into Ethiopia, you'd pass through a relatively large, dry ecoregion called the Maasai Xeric Grassland and Shrub-land. Rainfall is rare and far in between this area. Due to the unpredictable weather conditions, grasslands survive for short periods depending on the amount of moisture they receive.
Plants and animals found here have adapted to this environment and are extremely resilient. However, due to competition brought about by the increasing inconsistent land use policy and prolonged droughts, many of these plants and animals are getting depleted or in danger of extinction.
This ecoregion is a contrast of desert, savanna woodland, wetland, and bush-land. The region around Lake Turkana and Omo river in southern Ethiopia is known for its cultural history findings including the early hominids Homo habilis and Homo erectus, whose fossils were discovered by anthropologist L. Leakey and his son Dr. Richard Leakey.
This region is unique and ethnobiologically important. The people inhabiting this area are cut off from the mainstream population and therefore lack the basic social and economic amenities. Amenities such as schools and hospitals are rare and far in between. For this reason, the local populations are closely attached to their cultures and the natural environment around them because that is the source of their livelihood.
The area therefore has proved to be a repository for local ecological knowledge and biodiversity in general. The way these communities use plants as food, forage, medicine (both human and veterinary) and other cultural uses is indeed a rich repertoire of african knowledge system.This is so because of the little influence that transition to urbanisation exerted on the locals.
Whereas some people would like to adopt or conserve these rare plants in-situ, others want them conserved ex-situ in herbaria, gene banks and as bonsai. Will you adopt a plant if you were asked or you can not be bothered? if yes, how will you go about it? Whatever the opinion, the bottom line is, these plants might hold an important key as far as far as drug research is concerned.
There are a some interesting articles on the endemic plants and animal species in this region and their known uses. We will be posting them here in the due course as pdf files. Watch this space.
We encourage you to read about these compilation of interesting projects from around Africa.