Humans-biggest threat to botanical garden
BY JOHN HOUANIHAU
While efforts have been ongoing to protect and serve guard the Botanical Garden people have been the biggest threat to the important site.
“The Botanical Garden is currently the largest green space within Honiara. It acts as an oxygen House for Honiara itself with the ecological role that connects to resilience to climate-related issues, thus, we have to protect the natural happening there for the interaction with flora,’’ Myknee Sirikolo.
The Director of the National Herbarium Botanical Garden told Island Sun that their role at the National Herbarium involved documenting and taxonomic of the plant species, crucial for the benefit of the country and Honiara itself.
He said that the Botanical Garden also has a nursery of plants which is usually used to supply tree planting projects for Honiara which often helps improve landscaping and improve Honiara’s resilient city.
“Our role at the National Herbarium involved documenting the type of plant and tree species we have in the country to develop its potential usages. We describe and give names to the list of plants or trees based on the different languages of our islands,’’ said Sirikolo.
“We deal with plant species classification to give their scientific names and identify different species of trees. So, our main role is to document different names, usage, where the plants grow, how they are processed for food, building material, medicine, and many more usages. We collect the specimens and store them,’’ he said.
“Currently we have more than 50,000 specimens of leaves, fruits, park, and parts of different trees and plants at the National Herbarium Botanical Garden. We store that information and share to the general public and students who are conducting their researches,’’ said Sirikolo from Choiseul province.
Mr. Sirikolo who has been taking the leadership role as Director for almost 36 years revealed that one of the services that was also provided by National Herbarium is verification and confirmation.
“For example, in any case, for plant certification it has to come to us. For instance, in all police cases regarding marijuana, especially since marijuana is one of the illegal drugs in the country, we assist police, we report to confirm before going to court for prosecution,’’ said Mr Sirikolo.
He stated that the Botanical Garden is a public space but for quite a while people have shown no respect and appreciation it.
“But we are trying our best to provide facilities putting in endemic or rare plant species to grow because we have a collection of living plants at the botanical garden. So, at the National Herbarium, we have dried plant species to do botanical scientific studies to develop potential products we have in the country.
“However, with encroachments, people trespassing, building of houses, gardens, managing of the area is quite challenging. I want to appeal to the general public to understand the role and importance of botanical gardens and respect it,’’ said the Director.
