Botanists launch bid to rescue the world's threatened habitats

One hundred of the most endangered habitats in the world are to be restored in a major global project.

Richard Gray The Telegraph 20 May 12;

They are some of the world's most threatened natural landscapes, devastated by decades of pollution and deforestation.

Now a major new project is aiming to restore some of the most damaged habitats on the planet to their former glory.

Experts from botanical gardens around the world will next week sign an agreement to work together in a 20 year long project to rescue 100 ecosystems that they fear are on the verge of being lost forever.

Among the landscapes they are hoping to save are the arid huarango woodlands in southern Peru, which have almost completely been turned to desert after being cut down to make way for farming.

Upland forests in the mountains of Kenya, which support rich varieties of plants and animals, have been so heavily cleared by tea plantations that just five per cent of the forests now remain.

In Britain they plan to restore areas of semi-natural grassland that were once common across much of the UK and supported large numbers of wild flowers and insects.

They will also target wetlands, a habitat which has reduced by almost half in UK over the past 75 years.

The Ecological Restoration Alliance, which includes botanic gardens from around the world including in China, Brazil, Hawaii, Kenya, Mexico, South Africa and Venezuela, was formed in response to a United Nations call to restore at least 15 per cent of the world's damaged ecosystems by 2020.

Dr Bruce Pavlik, head of restoration ecology at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, which is one of the lead institutions in the project, said: "We have set ourselves an ambitious goal, but the aim is to heal the wounds that humans have inflicted on the planet on a global scale.

"Right now most restoration projects are very small. If we are going to change the way we treat the planet over the next century then we need to focus on a larger scale."

Some of the most endangered habitats have suffered massive losses to deforestation to make way for agriculture and to provide timber, while mining has caused many rare landscapes to be destroyed.

Many areas require careful management to restore the soil quality and to ensure that the plant species build up in the right order before animals and wildlife can return.

Each botanic garden will draw on the expertise of their scientists to find the best ways of restoring the endangered habitats.

The scientists will also use seed banks like Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, which now has specimens from more than 10 per cent of the world's wild plant species, to help replant the habitats.

In some cases species from the last remnants of the habitat will also be cultivated and transferred to repopulate the land being restored.

The project has been given initial funding of £50 million and the final locations of all 100 habitats will be decided later this year.

Dr Pavlik said: "We are looking at ecosystems that are very diverse, from tropical rainforests to temperate deserts and grasslands.

"One of the main causes of degradation is fragmentation where agriculture has impinged on an area of forest and it has become isolated. Minding is also a problem as soil is often removed and the organisms that live in that soil go with it, so restoring that land is difficult.

"Deforestation should be relatively easy to overcome, but many reforestation projects use the wrong species."

An example of this is in the upland forests of Kenya, which have been cleared to make way for tea plantations and have reduced in numbers by up to 95 per cent since the early 1900s.

Threatened mammals including leopards, African wild dogs and the rare golden cat live in these upland forests along with more than 650 species of bird.

In many places the trees have been replaced with monotonous groves of foreign species such as pine, eucalyptus and acacia, which support little wildlife and are mainly used for firewood.

Mark Nicholson from the Brackenhurst Botanic Gardens near Nairobi has found that by reintroducing native tree species, which can tower up to 30 feet high, the canopy can provide shelter for rare plants including lianas and orchids, along with many animals.

Researchers found that the restored forest can support over 170 species of bird while the eucalyptus only supports 30.

The huarango arid woodlands of Peru are another of the rare landscapes the Alliance will attempt to save. Huge areas have been turned into virtually barren, sandy desert as the trees have been cut down to create farmland.

Without the huarango trees to release moisture into the atmosphere, however, the area has become prone to drought. Scientists at Kew are now hoping to reestablish these woodlands to transform the landscape back into a lush, green environment.

Similarly the high altitude forests of Mexico are among the richest on earth, containing 12 per cent of the country's plant species. These forests help to condense water from the atmosphere and supply water for many of the cities below.

In the US the Alliance will attempt to restore the prairies, which have been so heavily exploited for agriculture and development that just small pockets remain.

In Britain researchers at Kew are also looking at recreating the chalk and acidic grasslands that were once prominent across much of England.

A switch from traditional farming and grazing methods saw many of these grasslands being lost, with up to 90 per cent of chalk grassland disappearing since the 1950s.

The scientists have discovered a method for replanting grasslands that ensures the survival of almost all of the plants.