Geoscience Reference
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very small in size. As such they cannot successfully accommodate faunal species
that require large territories. There are only two Botanical Gardens in Lesotho.
These are the National University of Lesotho (NUL) Garden, which is mainly used
for teaching purpose, and the Katse Botanical Garden that was established by the
Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) in 1996. The Katse Botanical Garden is
largely focused on alpine vegetation with the emphasis of plants that are heavily
used for livelihoods. It has a propagation program for these species so that they
could be re-introduced into the wild. This component also reduced pressure from
wild species, as communities and individual users purchase from the garden instead
of collecting from the wild. Both gardens have housed specimens that were rescued
from mountain valleys that are inundated by the LHWP.
These attempts are facilitated by projects that are funded by the Global Environ-
ment Facility (GEF), such as the Conservation of Mountain Biodiversity in Southern
Lesotho (CMBSL) and the Maloti Drakensberg Transfrontier Project (MDTP). The
Maloti-Drakensberg Transfontier Conservation and Development Project (MDTP)
is a collaborative initiative between South Africa and the Kingdom of Lesotho
to protect the exceptional biodiversity of the Drakensberg and Maloti mountains
through conservation, sustainable resource use, and land-use and development
planning. This area encompasses distinct landscape and biological diversity. It is
quite rich in species and high in endemism. Excessive livestock grazing, crop
cultivation on steep slopes, uncontrolled burning, alien invading species and human
encroachment threatens this asset. To maintain the ecosystem integrity of these areas
and to alleviate poverty in the mountains, the Governments of Lesotho and South
Africa have made a joint intervention to arrest these problems through the Maloti-
Drakensberg Transfrontier Project.
Lesotho has recently acceded to the Ramsar Convention. It has listed the Letsa-
la-Letsie wetland in Quthing district as the wetland of international significance.
This wetland is the source of the Quthing River, which is a major tributary of Senqu
or the Orange River. The Orange River is one of the largest rivers in Southern
Africa. The conservation of wetlands in Lesotho is important especially in the light
of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), which harnesses water for sale to
South Africa. Water is therefore an important economic asset for Lesotho. Lesotho
has ratified the United Nation Convention to Combat Desertification and is already
preparing alignment of National Action Program (NAP) with 10 year strategic plan
of UNCCD.
References and Further Reading
Chakela QK, Seithleko EM (1995) Desertification: Lesotho case study, Govt. Printer Maseru 87 p
Forestry Division (1997) Annual report for year 1996-97, Govt Printer, Maseru 69 p
May ED (1994a) Report on data collection for the Lesotho component of the SADC Forestry data
bank, Maseru
May ED (1994b) The forest arboretum of trees and shrubs of Lesotho- Forestry Division, Ministry
of Agriculture, Maseru, Lesotho.
http://www.infoplease.com/atlas/country/lesotho.html
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