In the last few years, droughts and floods have been taking turns in ravaging the southern Africa region. Untold suffering has been wrought on inhabitants of this economically struggling region especially among the rural dwellers.

Whereas casualties in human life have received immediate sympathy, damage to plant diversity has perhaps not received corresponding response. Yet, according to experts, natural disasters have damaged plant genetic diversity. In the process, even indigenous knowledge that has been passed on from generation to generation is also lost together with homesteads that have stood in particular locations for ages.

Ms Thandie Lupupa, the acting Director of the SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre (SPGRC) says certain knowledge about traditional species is not documented anywhere so once lost; it may not be found again.
But not all has been lost. By 1988, the SADC region had foreseen such an eventuality and thereby established the SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre (SPGRC).

The mandate of the SPGRC, an autonomous regional organization, is to collect, conserve, document, evaluate, and use regional plant germplasm as part of Southern Africa's efforts to conserve biodiversity.

Each member state has a national Plant Genetic Resource Centre but the regional office is situated in Lusaka at Chalimbana Research Station on the Great East Road. The SPGRC is governed by a board of 12 members representing each SADC Member State (except Democratic Republic of Congo for now).

Each member country has a national centre which maintains a gene bank from which they send a sample of every available species to be deposited in the base collection in Lusaka.

When a sample is collected, it is multiplied by way of replanting. When a particular species has been wiped out due to floods for example, the gene bank in the given country is expected to reach out from its bank and replenish the original area. This is done in conjunction with the local farmers. In this way, the species is preserved. In the case where the national bank has run out of the sample or for some reason does not have the particular species, the ‘central’ bank in Zambia will come in to supply the given country.

From inception, the SPGRC has collected and stored more than 37, 000 accessions of different crops. But the question is, has all the available species in such a diverse region been collected?

“The work is huge and we earmark certain disaster prone areas for collection, so we are not sure if all have been collected” wondered Ms Lupupa adding that “we are yet to get reports from national centres.”

And the floods are also a test to the viability of the network. From its inception, the network has never been called upon to replenish the region with such amounts of samples as is expected at the end of the current floods. The network has just been collecting and storing samples with very few occasions to replenish. But now given the heavy floods that have sweept across the region, the network is likely to receive choking demands for samples.

And this is the period the initial funding project is coming to an end. It was established in 1998 as a 20-year project with funding form Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Next year, this project closes. What comes to an end is the funding from the Nordic countries but the work of the SPGRC continues.

And Ms Lupupa disclosed that her network will now focus on disaster resistant varieties.

She said that her organisation will start researching and preserving plants that can survive the changing weather pattern of southern Africa.
She said that in its 19 years of existence, the SPGRC has been collecting and preserving any type of plant gene regardless of its ability to resist weather changes.
“It seems these floods are here to stay. So we are changing and want to target those which can withstand floods because we are not just preserving them like in a museum but they are meant for a useful purpose” explained Ms Lupupa.

She disclosed that currently network was scouting for funds from organisations like New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and Global Trust to embark on researching on which plants in the region can survive weather changes. She said that even the Nordic countries will be approached because even though the funding period is ending next year, there is an understanding that they may still finance research projects.

It’s beyond argument that the work of the SPGRC IS critical to the region but it is also important that regional governments have ongoing national disaster preparedness programs especially in the face of the now unpredictable weather pattern in the region.