The untouched islands of Soqotra have been dubbed "an Indian Ocean Galapagos". One third of their plant species are endemic, including some of the world's most bizarre. As much-needed development now approaches, botanists are helping the Soqotrans and the United Nations in a wide-ranging conservation programme to ensure the future of a remarkable flora.

The text on the next few pages is taken, with kind permission, from an article by Diccon Alexander and Tony Miller that was first published in Plant Talk.

Scientists first reached the remote Soqotra Archipelago in 1880, when Scottish botanist Isaac Bailey Balfour collected around 500 plants. Over 200 were species new to science. Today the known Soqotran flora stands at over 850 species, including some 270 endemics. Many are strange-looking remnants of ancient floras which long ago disappeared from the African/Arabian mainland. They create a weird vegetation - and make the archipelago the world's tenth richest island group for endemic plant species.

But it is not just plant endemism that makes Soqotra unique. Lack of development means that Soqotra'is probably much as it was before people arrived. High winds and seas cut off the island from the outside world for five months of the year, making it one of the most inaccessible places on earth. Over the centuries the Soqotrans have developed complex systems to prevent over-exploitation of the flora, without which they and their livestock could not survive. "Soqotra is one of the few dry tropical islands left which is still relatively untouched by modern development", says Alan Hamilton of WWF International. "It represents a particular type of gene-pool, not really found elsewhere - a bit like an Indian Ocean version of the Galapagos."