Letan Kurenia Mollel
Warburgia ugandensis (from the Canellaceae family), commonly known as the East African greenheart and Osokonoi in Maasai, is a highly sought-after medicinal plant with its roots and stem barks being sold in various cities and local markets in Northern Tanzania (Mollel et al., 2022). It is an important medicinal plant in Maasai traditional medicine for healing various health problems such as gastrointestinal, and respiratory disorders among others. While Warburgia ugandensis plays a significant role in healthcare, it faces severe threats of local extinction due to unsustainable harvesting practices escalated by the booming black market (Abuto et al., 2016), and habitat loss associated with rapid population growth (Leonard & Viljoen, 2015; Muchugi et al., 2012). Also, the low regeneration rate of the species, due to the recalcitrant nature of its seed,s puts it at high risk of local extinction in many areas.
The medicinal uses (Denis et al., 2018), phytochemicals (Nadharani, 2020), and pharmacological studies (Zhuang et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2021) of Warburgia ugandensis remain the most studied and are fairly understood. However, our understanding of the sustainability and conservation of this botanical treasure remains limited since it exists in a data vacuum, with its population structure, status, distribution, and even the manner of harvesting (whether sustainable or unsustainable) remaining poorly documented. While there have been a limited number of studies on its status, threats, and distribution in Kenya (Dokata et al., 2023), the sole and ultimate assessment in Tanzania was a botanical-based inventory from 1951 in Rondo Forest Reserve, southern Tanzania(Howard, 2020). This lack of recent data and documentation hinders our understanding of the species’ current conservation status, distribution, and existing threats. Therefore, this study intends to:
(i) Engage local communities to identify existing Warburgia ugandensis populations, documenting their threats, population structure, and mapping their distribution to establish baseline data for easy monitoring and conservation.
(ii) Empower local communities to establish and manage operational tree nurseries to propagate Warburgia ugandensis.
(iii) Provide conservation education and awareness creation to the local communities bordering species’ habitat on the ecological roles of the species, and the key threats leading to its population decline.