What could a remote seed repository carved into a snow-covered Norwegian mountain have to do with native trees growing half a world away in Africa?
As it turns out, quite a lot.
Diverse tree species are key to sustainable land management, helping to maintain soil fertility, regulate water cycles and support biodiversity. Their conservation is essential not only in the fight against land degradation but also for securing food supplies, as healthy ecosystems sustain agriculture and the livelihoods of millions.
On 25 February, the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) will deposit 120,000 seeds from 13 native African tree species in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the world’s largest backup facility for seeds, during its first opening of 2025. This marks over a decade since CIFOR-ICRAF pioneered tree seed conservation in this Arctic sanctuary by bringing the first-ever tree seeds from its genebank in 2008. The latest deposit includes native species such as Faidherbia albida, Balanites aegyptiaca and Adansonia digitata, which are crucial for restoring Africa’s degraded landscapes.
A scientist in CIFOR-ICRAF’s Tree Genebank. Photo by CIFOR-ICRAF
These African tree species were specially chosen for storage in Svalbard due to their usefulness and role in land restoration initiatives, agroforestry programmes, reforestation projects and food security.
At first glance, the importance of native tree species may not be immediately apparent.
In many parts of Africa, the word ‘exotic’ is anything but positive in a landscape context. For centuries, colonial powers imported and introduced foreign tree species that disrupted and threatened the continent’s ecosystems, altered the water cycle and displaced native plants, wildlife habitats and local communities. Many of these exotic species, such as eucalyptus, are still planted today due to their availability, rapid growth, or commercial benefits.
Yet, there are thousands of native tree species that can play an important role in the restoration of Africa’s landscapes, helping nations to meet the ambitious goals of the Bonn Challenge and AFR100 Initiative while supporting rural livelihoods.
Desert landscapes
Africa’s road to restoration is long: up to 65 percent of the continent’s productive land is degraded, while desertification affects 45 percent of Africa’s land area, according to a 2021 review of the region’s forests and landscapes.
Native tree species – such as Ficus sycomorus and Acacia senegal – have evolved over millions of years to thrive in African landscapes. They developed complex mechanisms to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere, enrich the soil and conserve water resources.
However, climate change and deforestation –driven by monoculture farming and a rising human population – are threatening these native species. Their conservation is vital to Africa’s ecological and economic future.
Furthermore, the widespread use of inferior-quality tree planting material – with a focus on exotic species – has resulted in poor outcomes for biodiversity, carbon sequestration, climate resilience and livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa.
Seeds for Africa
The Right Tree, Right Place: Seed Project (RTRP-Seed) helps solve this problem by supplying high-quality seeds and seedlings of native tree species to scale up landscape restoration in five African countries: Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda and Burkina Faso.
Running until 2030, the six-year project collaborates with international, national and local partners to help African countries meet their landscape restoration pledges. The initiative integrates local knowledge and scientific research while fostering cooperation between communities, public institutions and private entreprises to ensure restoration efforts are scalable and sustainable.
Through a coordinated strategy, the project aims to achieve several objectives: First, it seeks to enable policies and institutions that facilitate the supply of native tree seed. Second, to develop technical capacity along the seed-to-seedling delivery chain. Third, it aims to establish strong links between nurseries to meet the growing restoration demands on deforested lands. And fourth, the project is committed to sharing knowledge to inspire and promote similar initiatives on a pan-African scale.
RTRP-Seed aims to cover 20 million hectares of land by 2045, prevent the loss of 4 million tons of soil annually, sequester an additional 19 million tons of CO₂ and create over 80,000 jobs in harvesting and tree-related industries.
Alice Muchugi, scientist and theme leader, presenting CIFOR-ICRAF’s seed collection. Photo by CIFOR-ICRAF
Conservation in Svalbard
However, securing the supply of seeds and seedlings is only part of the story. Equally important is conserving native tree species to safeguard their enormous ecological potential. This is particularly urgent, as more than 30% of the world’s known tree species currently face the threat of extinction.
The CIFOR-ICRAF genebank team in Nairobi is dedicated to the conservation and sustainable use of agroforestry tree genetic resources. By acquiring diverse tree germplasm through global partnerships, characterizing it to identify useful traits and making this material available to users, the genebank currently safeguards 248 agroforestry tree species that serve multiple purposes, including food, fodder, timber, medicine and soil restoration.
Yet, no genebanks are immune to potential risks, including climate change, natural disasters, financial constraints and conflict, that could threaten seed collections. This is why CIFOR-ICRAF has been making deposits to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault since the iconic Norwegian facility was established in 2008.
Africa’s indigenous trees need our support now. Past generations have focused too much on fast-growing exotic trees rather than planting diverse native species that are adapted to local ecological conditions.
With the foresight symbolized in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, we can make a huge contribution to future land-restoration efforts and boost long-term sustainability by conserving the right seeds in the right place.
Acknowledgements
The Right Tree, Right Place: Seed Project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) and the International Climate Initiative (IKI). International implementing partners are Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) and Unique Land Use GmbH, while the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) supports up- and out-scaling of developments.
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