Orange sunlight filtered through the pall of smoke from nearby fires and leaves of the Guanacaste tree as students examined the tree in front of them. It might seem counterintuitive, but the best way to introduce students who know quite a few local trees to the process of plant identification is to start with the trees that they already know.

When students have to explain to their colleagues why they know a tree species they start to realise what characters have helped make those identification decisions. It can help students to compare the tree to a similar but different species of tree nearby. In this case we compared the Guanacaste (Enterolobium cyclocarpum (Jacq.) Griseb.) to a nearby Qualmwood (Schizolobium parahyba (Vell.) S.F.Blake), two charismatic tree species in the megadiverse plant family Leguminosae. By articulating the characters they were using to differentiate the two trees, students were already engaging with which characters were useful for identification and the terminology that they needed to describe the characters.

The students in questions were taking part in a short introduction to plant identification course held at Belize Botanic Gardens in Cayo District, south of San Ignacio in Belize. The course was held as part of Darwin Innovation Grant ‘Upscaling innovative ‘planting-baskets’ to restore landscape diversity, enhancing climate-resilient livelihoods‘. The students involved were working across the environment and conservation sector in Belize, including government departments and some of the NGOs that are responsible for managing Belize’s extensive protected area system. These students were highly skilled and working at the front line of conservation, yet had previously had little training in the plant identification process.

The course was held twice and took place over three days. Day one focused on sterile characters for plant identification, day two focused floral characters and day three provided a recap and discussion of additional plant identification resources. For many students this was their first time examining plants in this level of detail and it became clear from feedback that further and more in-depth plant identification training was needed across their organisations.

The teaching conditions provided context to the urgency of these skills: Hot days and skies grey with smoke, orange sunlight and ash raining down into the tinder dry Belize Botanic Gardens. Belize was at the end of the country’s most extreme dry season and worst ever fire season. Although the first wet season rains were soon expected, early estimates indicated that as much as 10% of the country had burnt in the past few months. In some fire-prone ecosystems, such as the submontane pine savanna in the Mountain Pine Ridge, as much as 70% may have burnt.

Inevitably this affected training. Many students were unable to attend because their organisations needed the manpower for fighting fires. For the students who attended, conversation would turn to their reserves still burning or how they would start the process of helping their protected areas regenerate post burn.

This is where lack of plant identification skills became clear. Huge swathes of the reserves they manage were on fire. However, many protected areas lack baseline data on the plants found within them. So planning what trees and other plants are needed for propagation to help replant burnt areas seems overwhelming. Hopefully, the huge interest and need for these skills highlighted by this course will provide the catalyst for future training and upskilling across the NGO sector as they battle at the frontline of the climate crisis.

Further Reading:

Darwin Innovation Grant Upscaling innovative ‘planting-baskets’ to restore landscape diversity, enhancing climate-resilient livelihoods