The importance of plant diversity and the need for its conservation incorporated into communication, education and public awareness programmes

Contributors: C. Brown, M. Cocks, A. Hitchcock & D. Raimondo

Background

South Africa has a long history of running public awareness programmes for plant diversity and conservation, such as through the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) linked to the ten botanical gardens across the country. SANBI has a strong synergistic association with the Botanical Society of South Africa (BotSoc), and both run public awareness programmes such as the Custodians of Rare and Endangered Wildflowers (CREW).

The formal education system in South Africa includes sections on biodiversity in the high school curriculum, and specifically deals with plant diversity and human influences on ecosystems. Beyond high school, many tertiary institutions have courses focusing on plant diversity and conservation, ranging from being strictly botany focused to courses in nature conservation/management.

Apart from the formal education curriculum, South Africa has set aside several days each year to commemorate issues relevant to this target, such as Arbor Day, and commemorate pertinent international days, such as International Biodiversity Day, World Environment Day etc. There are also many initiatives that bring together government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in achieving public awareness and action towards plant conservation.

Challenges

Although issues of plant diversity and conservation are included in the school curriculum, the majority of schools are not equipped with either the teachers or facilities to effectively achieve the goals of the curriculum. Furthermore, analysis of the examinations done at the end of high school (National Senior Certificate) show that students fare particularly poorly in environmental studies (National Senior Certificate 2013: Diagnostic report, Department of Basic Education).

Target 14 outcomes for 2020

14.1.   Plant conservation included in the life science curriculum across South Africa.

Education: plant conservation needs to be incorporated into the school curriculum at provincial level to ensure that the curriculum is relevant to local language(s)/culture(s) and biome(s). A blanket curriculum intervention for South Africa will lose an enormous opportunity to engage at a local level. Currently plant conservation is poorly supported mainly due to lack of locally relevant material available to educators. One way to gain support and understanding is to introduce the concept of bio-cultural diversity at schools. The Grade 10 Life Science curriculum provides a perfect platform for this. An excellent pilot of such an intervention is the Inkcubeko Nendalo Bio-Cultural Diversity Conservation Programme, http://www.bioculturaldiversity.co.za run by Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape. This programme gets learners interested in plant diversity and conservation by studying how plants form an integral part of their culture. These types of education interventions need to be replicated in other provinces.

14.2.   Plant conservation awareness expanded by exposure to botanical gardens and by involving the public in citizen science projects.

Creating awareness by involving the public in citizen science projects: engaging the public in monitoring plant diversity helps raise awareness of plant conservation issues and a sense of community responsibility for caring for the environment. Examples of popular and ever-growing citizen-science interventions include the CREW programme and the iSpot virtual museum. CREW involves volunteers from the public, mostly from rural areas, in the monitoring and conservation of rare and threatened plants, http://www.sanbi.org/programmes/threats/crew, while iSpot is an exciting and interesting website that allows anyone with an interest in nature to share their observations and passion with a network of like-minded enthusiasts by posting digital photographs of plants observations online. This makes it a virtual museum of plant information. In addition to being a virtual museum, it is a social hub for nature enthusiasts and an increasingly valuable database on species occurrences, see www.ispot.org.za.

14.3.   Plant conservation promoted in relevant media.

Media: currently there is very little-media coverage for plant conservation and better coverage on social media platforms is required. Key persons from within the Plant Conservation Network need to be identified as designated ‘Talking Heads’ and to foster relationships with media outlets. Members of the Plant Conservation Network active on Social Media platforms such as blogging, Facebook, Twitter etc. need to promote plant conservation information on their platforms.