Extinction looms for cycads

The government and the SA National Biodiversity Institute are in a race against time to save local cycads from extinction.

A report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature said the prehistoric plants, which predate dinosaurs, "are the most threatened group of organisms that have been assessed so far".

With 39 different species in the country, South Africa has the most diverse cycad population in the world, but its diversity is shrinking fast and extinction looms.

A third of South African cycads are classified as critically endangered.

The biodiversity institute's Professor John Donaldson, who attended the IUCN conference in Japan, said seven South African cycad species had fewer than 100 individuals in the wild.

"We have seen dramatic declines in some species over 10 years and this is going to result in extinctions."

One of the seven, the Escarpment cycad, Encephalartos brevifoliolatu,was discovered only in 1996 in a remote, mountainous area of Limpopo. The only known population comprised five to seven plants.

In 2004, poachers stole several. The rest were taken to a safe location by conservation officials.

Dirk van der Walt of the Cycad Society of SA said the plants were in danger because they had commercial value. "There are more cycads in private collections than where they grow originally," he said.

Michele Pfab, of the biodiversity institute, said there was a plan to save the plants, but first poaching had to be stopped.

"Plants are being stolen as we speak. It is out of control," she said.

"We have made a series of recommendations to national government in April and recommended that they start a national cycad strategy."