Guest Lecture on Ethiopian Vegetation, Plant Diversity and Ethiopian Green Legacy Initiative to combat deforestation

Sebsebe Demissew is Professor of Plant Systematics and Biodiversity in Addis Ababa University and Executive Director of the Gullele Botanic Garden in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He is a member of  the Royal Society of United Kingdom and member of The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. He is a Winner of the 2016 Kew International Medal.

The lecture will outline our experiences with the international research collaboration on the on the multi-volume work Flora of Ethiopia and Eritrea (1989 – 2009) and the subsequent books, the Atlas of the Potential Vegetation of Ethiopia (1990) and the Western Woodlands of Ethiopia (2022), the latter two based on field observations and modelling. The vegetations types found by a combination of these two methods do not always agree with vegetation types found by computerized modelling. Why, and which is best? Finally, the Ethiopian Green Legacy initiative to combat deforestation will be addressed, and how can this work benefit from the flora and vegetation studies.