Peter Smith University of Botswana (PSUB) Acknowledges Desert & Delta Safari’s for Funding

The Peter Smith University of Botswana (PSUB) herbarium held and event this afternoon to thank and acknowledge Desert & Delta Safari’s (DDS ), a subsidiary of Chobe Holdings for the 2019 funding  of PSUB herbarium’s project: Data Mobilization.  In 2017 DDS first pledged to co-fund PSUB’s Data Mobilization Project in partnership with Ngamiland Sustainable Land-use Management Project (SLM Ngamiland) which was a UNDP-GEF and Government of Botswana funded project.

 PSUB herbarium houses a unique collection of dried plants that were collected by the late Mr. Peter Alexander Smith from 1973 up until his untimely death in 1999. Fortunately, Pete, as he was widely known, donated his plant collection to the Maun campus of the University of Botswana (UB), then known as Harry Openheimer Okavango Research Centre (HOORC), before his demise. 

The Maun campus of UB is now the Okavango Research Institute and has since inherited Mr. P. A. Smith’s collection of reference books, maps and plant related correspondence. Altogether this collection of Pete’s life’s work represents a treasure trove of reference material on the floral component of the biodiversity of northern Botswana. 

So, it is with grateful thanks for the financial support, 

Of both DDS and SLM Ngamiland that enabled PSUB herbarium to:

• Install the database called BRAHMS (Botanical Records And Herbarium Management System).
• To bring BRAHMS expertise from the Namibian Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) to train staff from three Botswana herbaria in how to use and tailor the database for our needs here in Botswana

• To facilitate the continued preparation of plant specimens from the collection for digital scanning.

To date PSUB herbarium has imported more than 2610 botanical data records of plant specimens and has made more than 1500 digital images of these specimens.

DDS released further funds to PSUB in August 2018 which are starting to be used now and will allow PSUB herbarium to migrate the data and digital images to a server which has more space allowing images to be linked to data permanently and eventually access to this will be available to anyone requesting it. This continued financial support of DDS to the Data Mobilisation Project of PSUB also facilitates the preparation of further botanical specimens for scanning and data entry. 

Desert & Delta Safaris has now created a special relationship between one of their camps: Xugana Island Lodge and PSUB herbarium. This is a most suitable choice of camp since that location was of special interest to Peter Smith when he was working for the Aquatic Weed Control Unit of the Department of Water Affairs. Pete was monitoring that area as there was a vegetation blockage on the Nqoga river, which was causing changes to the hydrology and habitat, he was interested to understand whether it would be a temporary change or would have longer term implications. That blockage has persisted and progressed.

Okavango Research Institute and PSUB herbarium are very grateful for the continued support from the private sector, specifically Desert & Delta Safaris’ Xugana Island Lodge, for their ongoing interest in, and support of, the preservation of Peter Smith’s legacy collection of floristic specimens. We are encouraged to continue our work of making this unique collection of plant data useable and available for all and for the future.

PSUB herbarium’s data Mobilisation project is currently focused on the personal collection of the late Mr. Peter Smith. This process will expand later to include specimens deposited with Pete and now form an integral part of the legacy collection at PSUB herbarium. These other specimens were collected by notable ecologists including Douglas Williamson (Lion research in the CKGR in the 1970s and early 1980s), R.C. Biggs (who was doing field work on Chief’s Island as part of his master’s study), H. Hiemstra and W.L. Astle (who were both part of a hydrological UNDP study in the 1970s).  

This unique collection of plant specimens is of paramount importance to everybody concerned about the ecology Ngamiland, and in particular, the 1000^th World Heritage site: the Okavango delta, as declared in 2014.

For further information please contact: 

PSUB Herbarium Office: +267 6817250 or PSUB Herbarium: +267 6817257

Mr. Joseph Madome, PSUB Herbarium Curator: madome@ub.ac.bw

Mrs. Frances Murray-Hudson, PSUB Data Mobilisation Project Assistant: fmurray-hudson@ub.ac.bw