Celebrating the end of a 30 year old project, the Ethiopian Flora Project, and the beginning of a new one, the Gullele Botanic Garden

Abstract

The National Herbarium of Ethiopia within the Addis Ababa University held a workshop in
November, 2010, to celebrate the end of the Ethiopian Flora Project and the beginning of a new
Botanic Garden. Many participants of the workshop expressed that the Ethiopian Flora Project is
not only a model for trans-national and inter-continental collaboration between professionals and
institutions but also a model for rapid generation of needed botanical information about a
country. Forty-three institutions and 92 scientists from 18 countries participated in the Project.
The Ethiopian Flora Project was probably the largest departmental project of the Addis Ababa
University, carried out jointly by its Department of Biology (now Faculty of Life Sciences) and
the Department of Systematic Botany [now Biology] of Uppsala University in Sweden between
1980 and 2010. A brief history of the project is provided and its achievements highlighted. The
entire vascular flora of the country has now been documented in eight volumes. Twelve people
have been trained, directly and/or indirectly, to the level of Ph. D. and these, in turn, have trained
over 200 Ethiopians and others from neighboring African countries to the level of M.Sc. The
small specialized library within the National Herbarium, AAU, geared towards systematic
botany, is strengthened. A large number of scholarly and scientific articles as well as a number of
books have been published using the information contained in the Flora volumes and the
collections in the National Herbarium. The National Herbarium (known by its acronym ETH) is
now offering services to institutions within the country at a much improved pace and accuracy
than hitherto due to the increased number and diversity of the collections. The Department of
Biology has also entered into an agreement with the Addis Ababa City Administration to develop
a portion of the Entoto mountains into a botanic garden. The expressed purpose of the Gullele
Botanic Garden is to serve the country as a model (education, study, research, environmental
awareness, conservation, etc.) on how to use and preserve one of its environmental resources.