Lifestyle

As Sino-African relations progress, more and more African countries expect to strengthen their self-development through cooperation with China. Conservation of biological diversity plays an important role in achieving this goal.

Case in point: "The Chinese Government is working cooperatively with Ethiopia in many areas such as commerce, information technology and construction. I hope this cooperation will be also extended to maintaining the biodiversity of Ethiopia," said Hirut Assaye Cherie, a teacher from Addis Ababa University of Ethiopia, to ChinAfrica in an email interview.

Fabien Rizinjirabake, an instructor at the National University of Rwanda, wrote in a letter to ChinAfrica that he believes that Africa hopes to work with China on capacity building in matter of botanical resources conservation.

Both Cherie and Rizinjirabake traveled to China this past April to attend a course on East African biodiversity and conservation biology. The two-week course, sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), brought together 22 teachers from six nations - Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zambia, Rwanda and Malawi.

The course is part of the Sino-African joint research project Biodiversity Conservation Studies in the East African Flora which was launched in May 2010. The project, co-founded by CAS' Wuhan Botanical Garden and the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, partly aims at fostering biodiversity conservation research talent in African countries.

According to Dr. Liao Kuo at Wuhan Botanical Garden, the training course was embraced by African participants who were accessing (some for the first time) advanced technology like molecular marker techniques and genetic diversity analysis. Rizinjirabake expressed his own experience on the course, "In Wuhan Botanical Garden I was very surprised by the laboratory equipment in molecular analysis and we observed that equipment is all made in China. This is a key point in research development that your country has achieved."

Cherie's favorite classes were Genomics and Invasion Biology. She explained that Ethiopia enjoys abundant plant resources, but that the country's biological diversity is confronted by many threats, particularly the fast spreading of invasive plants. "The courses gave me insights about how to protect the native species from being destroyed by these alien species and how to maintain the genetic pool of native species," she said.

Impressed by China's research achievements and advanced techniques, the African researchers emphasized the importance of cooperation on biodiversity conservation. Robert W. Gituru is a senior lecturer at the Department of Botany at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology who finished his doctoral and postdoctoral studies at Wuhan University in China. He traveled back to the country especially to attend the course. He explained that the Kenyan economy to a large extent relies on tourism and agriculture, both of which require biological diversity, adding that he hopes that China could keep helping Kenya in this endeavor.

Biodiversity conservation has become a global subject, and cooperation on the matter between China and Africa benefits not only African countries. Dr. Wang Qingfeng, a project leader on Biodiversity Conservation Studies in the East African Flora, believes that the Sino-African cooperation on biodiversity conservation was of mutual benefit to both regions. Having been to countries like Kenya and South Africa for plant research, Wang maintained that cooperation could not only train personnel for African research efforts but also widen horizons for China's research. African experience on nature reserves and resource conservation can also merit China's reference.

Wang told ChinAfrica that as a new plan for the project, a botanical garden built by China and Kenya together, was under discussion. He also hoped that similar cooperation with other African countries will happen as time goes on.