Newsletter of the Southern African Botanical Diversity - SANBI

letter from the editors
EDITORS: YOLANDE STEENKAMP & CECILIA DE VOS BELGRAVER
The Project is slowly winding down with a scheduled closure date of 31 March 2005,
and accompanying this “slow-down” (relatively speaking) there have been some
changes at the Regional Office yet again.
Elsabé Malan (former Admin & Finance Officer for the SABONET Regional Office) has
left SABONET to take up a position with a small auditing company. The Regional Coordinator
has taken up a permanent position in the National Botanical Institute’s Data
Section as “PRECIS Information Co-ordinator”, but will still be managing the SABONET
Project until its closure. With the closure of the Project looming so soon in the future,
no new Admin & Finance Officer will be appointed.
You may have noticed that for the first time in years, Marthina Mössmer is not one of
the editors of SABONET News. No, she has not left SABONET, but as Editor-in-Chief of
the SABONET Report Series, she has been kept very busy during the past few months
with numbers in the Report Series coming out every few weeks. Since January this
year, seven Reports have been published (read more about them on page 34), with
about twelve more expected in the next few months. Since Report No. 25 “Herbarium
Essentials”, rolled off the presses in July 2004, people have been raving about it, and the
Regional Office is being flooded with requests for extra copies. If you haven’t received
one yet and think that you will be able to use it, order it from sabonetpub@nbi.ac.za.
But hurry! Stocks are limited.
Newsletter of the Southern African Botanical Diversity Network
Editors
Yolande Steenkamp
Cecilia de Vos Belgraver
Design and Layout
Antoinette Burkhardt
Vanilla Design Studio
(27) 83 635-1446
Reproduction and Printing
Capture Press
(27) 12 349-1802
Subscriptions
sabonetpub@nbi.ac.za
Website
www.sabonet.org
Submission of Manuscripts
Marthina Mössmer
editors@sabonet.org
See Instructions to Authors on page 4.
SABONET News is the official newsletter
of the Southern African Botanical Diversity
Network (SABONET).
This issue of SABONET News is dedicated to the Threatened Plants Programme that
SABONET has established in participating botanic gardens in eight of the ten countries.
Read the stories in the Living Collections section on pages 37 to 54. There is also
news from Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, and the Regional Office and three very
interesting articles, one on establishing National Botanical Gardens in South Africa,
one on the fascinating diversity of succulents in southern Africa, and a species list of
the Cyperaceae of Namibia.
The next and final issue of the SABONET News is scheduled for January 2005. We
are planning to dedicate it to reports on Important Plant Areas, and Centres of Plant
Endemism and Diversity on the southern African sub-continent, so please do send in
your contributions!
SABONET
South African National Biodiversity Institute
Private Bag X101
Pretoria 0001
SOUTH AFRICA
Tel.: (27) 12 804-3200
Fax: (27) 12 804-5979/3211
SABONET News is published twice a year
and is distributed free of charge.
Enjoy your reading!
—Yolande Steenkamp & Cecilia de Vos Belgraver
Printed on acid-free Dukuza
Plus Matte coated paper, which
contains a minimum of 60%
bagasse—the residue remaining
after sugar has been extracted
from sugar cane.
This newsletter was made possible through support
provided by the GEF/UNDP (SABONET is a GEF
Project implemented by the UNDP) and the Regional
Centre for Southern Africa, Gaborone, Botswana,
US Agency for International Development (Plot no.
14818 Lebatlane Road, Gaborone West, Extension
6 Gaborone), under the terms of the Grant No.
690-0283-A-00-5950. The opinions expressed in
the newsletter are those of the authors and do
not necessarily reflect the views of the US Agency
for International Development, the GEF/UNDP, the
SABONET Steering Committee or the National
Working Groups.
“Breaking News!
The National Botanical Institute has officially changed to
the South African National Biodiversity Institute
on 1 September 2004”.
SABONET News Vol. 9 No. 1 September 2004
3