Tropical Important Plant Areas (TIPAs) in Sierra Leone

Background: Biodiversity and main threats

Sierra Leone, on the southwest coast of West Africa, features a tropical climate with diverse environments. These range from lush rainforests in the south to drier savanna further north, mangrove swamps along the coastal regions and inselbergs in the mountainous eastern portion of the country. Of the c.15,000 vascular plant species recorded in Sierra Leone, at least 39 taxa are endemic. This includes one endemic plant genus; Habropetalum dawei (Diconophyllaceae). Notably, the country holds globally important populations of wild coffee species; including Coffea stenophylla and Coffea liberica.

In Sierra Leone, as in most tropical countries, the extent of exploitation of natural vegetation is marked. With one third of tropical African plant species potentially threatened with extinction, Sierra Leone stands out as one of the countries with the highest proportion of likely threatened plant species. There has been a devastating loss of habitat in the country: over 95% of Sierra Leone's original forest has been cleared for a variety of reasons, including logging for timber, charcoal and pole extraction, slash and burn, intensive agriculture and mining projects.

Identifying Tropical Important Plant Areas in Sierra Leone

There is an urgent need to identify critical sites for plant conservation in Sierra Leone so that the limited resources available can be targeted to ensure the sustainable management and long-term survival of Sierra Leones’s floristic diversity. 

In collaboration with the National Herbarium, University of Njala and University of Sierra Leone, Kew is working in Sierra Leone to identify the most important areas for plant conservation, providing evidence for new Tropical Important Plant Areas (TIPAs). These sites will encompass the majority of threatened and socio-economically indigenous important plant species and habitats, which are currently incompletely known and often unprotected.

Analysis of specimen data will identify potential hotspots of threatened plant species and plant diversity in Sierra Leone. This information will also support fieldwork by Sierra Leonean botanists and scientists from Kew to survey and assess these hotspots against TIPAs criteria and facilitate conservation assessment training. 

As a result of this work, additional numbers of Sierra Leone's endemic plant species will be Red Listed for the first time, improving the possibility of resources being allocated for their protection and reducing the risk of loss by development.

Additionally, Sierra Leone's priority sites for threatened and socio-economic plant species and threatened habitats will be identified, documented, and incorporated into a network of newly designated Important Plant Area, becoming the foci for protection and resource allocation.

The assessment of Important Plant Areas (IPAs) in Sierra Leone offers a practical but rigorous means of identifying the priority areas for site-based conservation. IPAs are aligned to Target 5 of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD's) 'Global Strategy for Plant Conservation' and so offer an important step towards fulfilling national CBD targets. Our results will be communicated to decisionmakers, enabling national authorities to incorporate plants into conservation prioritisation and sustainable management efforts.

Project Leader

Dr Martin Cheek

Team

Gabriella Hoban
Dr Charlotte Couch
Dr Xander van der Burgt
Fannyann Massally

• Identified and documented IPAs: the highest priority sites in Sierra Leone for plant conservation
• Fieldwork at each IPA to support desk-based assessments
• Additions to the “Red List” of globally threatened plant species in Sierra Leone and West Africa
• Workshops to engage with key stakeholders
• Build capacity in Sierra Leone in IPA identification
• Publication of a list of 'Lost and Found Species in Sierra Leone' - species of conservation importance that have not been collected in >50 years
• Taxonomic description and publication of species new to science of conservation importance in Sierra Leone and West Africa
• Increased accessibility of key data on Sierra Leone’s rare and unique plants, including the digitisation and geo-location of herbarium specimens of conservation priority species

Prof. Aiah Lebbie
Momoh Plato Sesay
Dr Jonathan Johnny
Samuel Sokpo

Njala University and National Herbarium
The University of Sierra Leone

Julie Edwards

The Woodspring Trust