Red List of Aquatic Plants

Red Listing Aquatic Plants from the Arabian Peninsula

Freshwater habitats and biodiversity in the Arabian Peninsula are unique and highly valued for the essential role they play in people’s survival, as well as that of its native flora and fauna. The limited number and area of wetland systems within the region, and the restricted size of many of them, constrains the distribution of species and the abundance of species in many basins. The greatest numbers of freshwater species and threatened species are found in the mountains of Yemen, the Socotra Archipelago, southwest Saudi Arabia and Dhofar in southern Oman. These areas, identified as centres of freshwater biodiversity and threat, can help focus development and conservation actions in ways that aim to minimise impacts to freshwater species throughout the region.

The project evaluates the conservation status of 292 species belonging to five taxonomic groups – 18 fish taxa, 30 molluscs taxa, 59 dragonflies and damselflies taxa (odonates)and 3 freshwater crabs. In total, 182 wetland dependent plants are also assessed.

Overall, 17% of the Arabian freshwater taxa assessed are threatened with extinction at the regional scale, with a further 3% assessed as Near Threatened and 20% as Data Deficient.

The success of conservation planning in order to guarantee the future sustainability of livelihoods, as well as the resources and services provided by functioning wetland ecosystems depends critically on the adequate involvement of communities in the long-term future of freshwater species and habitats across the region.

By compiling this existing information and updating it where possible this report provides an important resource for current and future decision making on the management and conservation of inland waters.

 

Project Details

Partners:

IUCNSpecies Survival Commission Conservation InternationalEnvironment Agency – Abu DhabiSenckenberg Institute

Location:

Arabian Peninsula

Project Start Date:

Related Project Services:

Conservation, Specialist Service

Earthwatch Oman

 

Earthwatch is working with Oman’s National Field Research Centre for Environmental Conservation (part of the Diwan of the Royal Court) to develop a number of field research projects in Oman. These are based in Jabal Samhan in the Dhofar mountain range, Wadi As Sareen in the Eastern Hajar mountains and Jabal al Akhdar in the Western Hajar mountains.

We are working with Earthwatch to deliver field training courses and plant identifcation to support this programme.

We’ve trained over 60 Omani participants in botanical fieldwork awarding them with RBGE’s Certificate in Practical Field Botany. Courses included training in digital photographic techniques towards the production of field guides for plant identification.

Project Details

Partners:

Earthwatch Institute

Location:

Oman

Project Start Date:

Related Project Services:

Capacity Development, Specialist Service, Surveying

Oman Mountain Project

The mountains of Oman are dramatic and beautiful. They are also in places extremely remote and inaccessible.

At first sight they seem an unpromising place to find plants however they are home to a surprisingly rich and varied flora. For example, over a third of Oman’s flora has been recorded from the the Western Hajar mountains including 14 Omani endemic species.

Oman’s Department of Economic Planning Affairs invited CMEP to survey 15 of Oman’s highest mountains as part of a multidisciplinary team. Most of these mountains had not been previously surveyed by botanists.

The project concentrated on the remoter mountains of the Eastern and Western Hajar range, including the isolated sumits of Jabal Qahwan and Jabal Kawr. As well as visiting Isolated Mountains in the Interior (sometimes referred to as the Isolated Hajar Mountains).

 

Project Details

Partners:

Oman Botanic GardenHanne & Jens Eriksen Steve RossGareth Whittington-JonesManfred Bohme

Location:

Oman

Project Start Date:

Related Project Services:

Surveying

Developing capacity for in situ conservation in Iraq

Iraq is facing major threats to its biodiversity following years of unstable government, breakdown in traditional land management and more recently rapid development. Almost 30 years of scientific isolation has resulted in limited in-country capacity to deal with these threats.

At present the only organisation in Iraq actively engaged in conservation work is Nature Iraq, who have adopted the Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) approach to identifying biodiversity-rich regions. Since 2005 BirdLife International has been supporting this work, conducting surveys and running training courses in collaboration with Nature Iraq. More recently, CMEP (part of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh) has also been working with Nature Iraq to develop botanical training in Iraq. These activities have involved staff and students alongside personnel from major Iraqi organisations with an interest in the environment including the major Universities and Ministries in both Iraq and the Kurdish Autonomous Region (KAR).

The birds of the region are relatively well known and progress in identifying KBAs based on bird data has been good. However, plants are relatively poorly known and there is a lack of appropriate identification tools. Flora of Iraq and Flora Iranica, the two floras covering the region, are almost complete; but, it has been found on recent training courses, they are linguistically and technically almost totally inaccessible to Iraqi professionals and students. Conservation work in Iraq cannot wait for the completion of these Floras or their conversion into more user-friendly formats.

To address the lack of plant data available to inform conservation planning in Iraq and to build capacity for surveying and managing biodiversity-rich areas, the project partners have together identified three overlapping and complementary areas of work:

  1. Collection of botanical data to build capacity for conservation.
  2. Capacity building in Protected Area Management.
  3. Training in foundation skills in botany, ornithology and conservation.

 

Find out more about the project at www.iraqdarwin.org

Project Details

Partners:

Location:

Iraq

Project Start Date:

2013

Related Project Services:

Capacity Development, Conservation

Evolutionary Conservation

Integrating evolution into practical conservation

The Socotra Archipelago has been referred to as ‘the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean’: its’ charismatic flora sits at the crossroads of three biogeographical regions and includes such intriguing endemic life forms as the dragon’s blood tree Dracaena cinnabari. The island is topographically, geologically and climatically diverse, with endemic taxa concentrated in high altitude ‘wet refugia’ which experience increased precipitation. Endemic taxa are also found on dry upland limestone plateaus and coastal plains. Several genera appear to have radiated within and among these refugia, while others appear to have radiated on an island-by-island basis throughout the archipelago.

Socotra harbours some 835 vascular plant species: 308 of these (37%) and 14 genera are found nowhere else. This is complemented by high levels of animal endemism, resulting in its’ designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, UNESCO Man & Biosphere Reserve, WWF Global 200 Ecoregion and Plantlife International Centre of Plant Diversity. Despite this, it does not qualify as a biodiversity hotspot in its own right as it falls short of the criterion of 0.5% of the world’s plant species as endemics, although its’ 37% plant species endemism exceeds that of 11 out of 34 officially designated hotspots. When ranked by number of endemic species per km2 it is exceeded by a single oceanic archipelago (Hawai’i) and isolated continental islands that are much larger (eg. New Caledonia, Jamaica).

Socotra is a continental fragment whose extant biota may reflect vicariant or dispersed elements, in contrast to oceanic islands where taxa have dispersed, adapted and diversified in situ on a clean slate of environmental opportunity. While the flora and its traditional uses have been comprehensively described, the evolutionary drivers of this diversity and endemism are poorly understood. Conservation assessments have been carried out for most of its vascular plant species and areas designated for protection: however these designations do not take into account the evolutionary uniqueness of the flora or identify and conserve the processes by which it has evolved.

Objective One:

Are protected areas on Socotra best defined by patterns of plant phylogenetic diversity?

Objective Two:

What is the origin of the Socotran flora, and what processes have driven the evolution of the island’s endemic species?

Objective Three:

How can evolution be integrated into practical conservation strategies?

 

Project Details

Partners:

Location:

Socotra Archipelago

Project Start Date:

2013

Related Project Services:

Conservation
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