Welcome to the Desert Botanic Garden of Namibia!
We hope you’ll join us on our journey to creating a new destination that celebrates Namibia’s wonderful plant diversity. We are currently hard at work putting together our Living Collection of plants, which’ll enable visitors to the Garden to experience and admire Namibia’s endemic flora up close in a spectacular and unspoiled natural setting. Building a Living Collection involves meticulous research, dedicated relationship-building, often lots of kilomentres on the road, and sometimes the use of heavy-lift equipment. It’s exciting, nailbiting stuff, and the thrill of seeing the ever-growing collection in situ and flourishing at the Garden never diminishes.
Also, we’re waiting for the rains to arrive in earnest for 2023 and there’s nothing like seeing our hardy desert-adapted plants transform and burst into bloom after the first showers. Be sure to check in regularly for photo updates in our galleries.
Namibia’s desert-adapted plants are remarkable in their ability to thrive in the harshest of conditions, and it is these very adaptations that make them highly sought-after to collectors. As a result, a lucrative illicit trade in endemic plants has sprung into existence, a trade which poses a significant threat to Namibia’s flora. Economic development is an additional threat – as development activities encroach into plant ranges, all too often plants are removed and destroyed and this is seen as the collateral damage associated with development. However, it doesn’t have to be a zero-sum scenario; it is our hope that companies recognise that with appropriate guidance and planning — which the DBGN can assist with — it is possible to preserve and relocate specimens rather than to remove and destroy them. As such, one of our primary objectives at the Garden is to educate both the public and business on how they too can make a positive impact in terms of safeguarding Namibia’s floral wealth. Choosing not to participate in the illegal trade in endemic plants, reporting incidents thereof to the relevant authorities and, whenever possible, opting to relocate specimens are all meaningful contributions to preserving the diversity of Namibia’s plantlife.
We hope you’ll check in regularly for updates not only on the rescue and relocation activities we are involved in, but also on the construction of the Garden’s infrastructure — our to-do list is a (very) long one! Seeing items on a list become reality is going to be so exciting, and your support will be greatly appreciated. There are big things ahead!
Next post: A seed safari.