Development is certainly on its way. The government of a recently unified Yemen is keen to improve conditions on the island and is raising international aid for this purpose. Assisted by the UN Development Programme, the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, and Miranda Morris, it is preparing a five year, US$12 million conservation and sustainable development programme. This should ensure that the future of the islanders' most important resource, their plants, is not put in jeopardy by the short-term benefits of development. The programme, due to I start in 1997, is seeking funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
The primary aim of the GEF programme is to strengthen traditional - and successful land management practices. Traditional knowledge is usually a first casualty of modern development, so Miranda Morris is compiling a manual of these practices collected from experts in each part of Soqotra. Thus later generations can relearn the practices if they are lost. The tradition of transplanting useful plants will be encouraged by the establishment of two nurseries at different altitudes, run by local people.
The tradition of transplanting useful plants will be encouraged by the establishment of two nurseries at different altitudes, run by local people. The nurseries will use the best of local and modern techniques to cultivate timber and fodder trees for general distribution and to study regeneration of selected endemics for future reintroduction to the wild. This will be backed up by an outreach programme to sustain existing environmental awareness, particularly among schoolchildren, co-ordinated from an environmental education centre in Hadiboh.
Underpinning the programme will be a network of 19 protected areas of high floristic diversity equivalent to the Important Plant Areas (IPAS) proposed for Turkey (see Plant Talk 5, pp.20-23). The principle is that in the event of massive environmental change, fencing these proposed areas would conserve viable populations of all Soqotran endemics and examples of all its unique vegetation types.
Such drastic action would only be a last resort. Catherine Cheung, biodiversity specialist at CEF, explains: "Soqotrans know how to manage their plant resources. If outsiders start restricting the movement of pastoralists and their herds around the island, it will only lead to resentment and failure."
Local plant experts recommended by the tribal councils will monitor environmental change in each conservation area, such as felling of live trees or overgrazing. Yemeni and Edinburgh botanists will set up small exclosures and permanent vegetation transects in the most vulnerable areas to provide further data on the exploitation of the vegetation. The first exclosure has already been established by a council in the east of the island. At the first sign of change the council will meet with local programme representatives, and in serious cases with Edinburgh staff and Morris, to devise appropriate remedial measures.
Edinburgh botanists are collaborating with Morris to prepare an Ethnoflora of Soqotra, a field guide to Soqotran plants and their traditional uses. The projected Flora features an illustrated plant identification key, together with chapters on rangeland management, ethnobotany, ecology and zoology. The information is being fed into a database linked to Geographical Information Systems (GIS), which will allow the programme to analyse changing plant distributions and predict the impact of future development.
These plans bring renewed optimism for the future of Soqotra. Development seems inevitable, and a sensitive approach could raise living standards for the people, while preserving the unique plants that are their most important natural resource. If the programme does work it will be a rare success story for island conservation. If it fails, this fragile environment could be a desert within a few decades.
