Threatened plants species of Guinea-Conakry: A preliminary checklist

Abstract

Guinea-Conakry has one of the highest plant diversities in Sub-Saharan West Africa and is part of the Upper Guinean Forest ecoregion and the Guinean Forests of West Africa biodiversity hotspot. Guinea is a major supplier of the world’s bauxite and has significant reserves of high grade iron ore, it also has small reserves of diamonds, gold and uranium. As a result large areas of open cast mining exist in the country and pressure on habitats and vegetation are increasing with the need to bring revenue into the country; this is in addition to unsustainable slash and burn agriculture and a growing population. An initial list of 482 species was compiled from Lisowski’s Flore (Angiospermes) de la République de Guinée, subsequent discussion and screening reduced the list to 253. This list has since increased, through new species and range extensions, to 270 which is presented here. It is estimated that c. 7-8% of the countries flora is threatened. Rediscoveries and new species are being made in Guinea, but they are often already threatened having been discovered as part of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs). A comprehensive red list of threatened species is much needed to support the country’s environmental policy as well as their international obligations. Data gathering for a Red Data Book for Guinea has been ongoing for several years and is due to be published in 2019.

Piloting development of species conservation action plans in Guinea

“…The implementation of these plans is the next stage in this process. The plan for Vernonia djalonensis (Supplementary Material 1) has already been the focus of a successful funding bid and is being implemented to safeguard this species, which was selected as the people's choice in the national flower of Guinea campaign (Couch, 2018) involving state school pupils, local communities and authorities. There is little awareness amongst Guinean residents that their country has a unique flora.…”

Prioritization of Important Plant Areas for conservation of frailejones (Espeletiinae, Asteraceae) in the Northern Andes

“…Outside Europe there are some examples in Malaysia (Hamidah et al 2020) and Saudi Arabia (Al-Abbasi et al, 2010), from which several lists of threatened and endemic plant species have been produced (Couch et al 2019a;Couch et al 2019b; Darbyshire et al 2019). In the Americas, the IPAs methodology has been mainly implemented in low-lands tropical ecosystems (i.e.…”

Tropical Important Plant Areas, plant species richness and conservation in the British Virgin Islands

“…The resulting data on globally threatened species and regional/national species of conservation concern and their distribution, botanically rich areas and threatened habitats help deliver a strong and scientifically-sound framework for species and habitat conservation and management. In 2019, annotated checklists of threatened plant species for the Guinea-Conakry region in Guinea (Couch et al 2019a) and Mozambique (Darbyshire et al 2019) were produced using the TIPAs process and the first TIPAs of Tropical Africa were identified in Guinea (Couch et al 2019b). An endemic species list for the Ebo Forest in Cameroon, a proposed National Park, have been published during the TIPAs identification process, reinforcing the importance of this area for local conservation (Cheek et al 2018).…”