Aspects of African Biodiversity

Professor Jacob Midiwo is at the Department of Chemistry, University of Nairobi, Kenya, Africa Dr John Clough is at Syngenta, Bracknell, UK

The proceedings of the Pan Africa Chemistry Network Biodiversity Conference which connected African scientists and provides a valuable overview of biodiversity in Africa.

The proceedings of the Pan Africa Chemistry Network Biodiversity Conference which connected African scientists and provides a valuable overview of biodiversity in Africa.

This book is the proceedings of the Pan Africa Chemistry Network Biodiversity Conference which was held in September 2008. A key aim of the RSC/Syngenta Pan Africa Chemistry Network (PACN) is to connect African scientists through a cycle of conferences and workshops and this conference held at the University of Nairobi was the first of these. It brought together 26 speakers from nine African countries - Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa, Nigeria, Botswana, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Sudan - plus the UK and Brazil. The lectures covered topics such as making the best use of the diversity of Africa's plants in agriculture and medicine whilst benefiting communities in Africa; natural products; analysis and the environment; water quality; dealing with waste; biofuels; understanding crop protection chemicals in the African context; agricultural practices for Africa; farm animals; conservation and the impact of tourism on biodiversity. The resulting book provides a valuable overview of several aspects of biodiversity in Africa.

1. Challenges and opportunities for Africa: an overview of key themes from the PACN biodiversity conference; 2. Exploring the therapeutic potentials of African medicinal plants; 3. Natural products from plant biodiversity and their use in the treatment of neglected diseases; 4. In vitro and in vivo antiplasmodial activity of Kenyan medicinal plants; 5. Anti-larval activity of crude plant extracts from vitex schiliebenii and vitex payos (verbenaceae); 6. Natural products as leads for new and innovative crop protection chemicals; 7. Exploiting phytochemical diversity to control pests of agriculture and vectors of human and animal disease; 8. Root chemicals could offer opportunities for breeding for sweet potato resistance to the weevil cylas puncticollis boheman (coleoptera: apionidae); 9. The role of biotechnology in meeting the biodiversity conservation challenge of Africa; 10. Farmers as a treasure chest of biodiversity - the case of sorghum [sorghum bicolor (l.) Moench] in Ethiopia, a five decade analysis; 11. Delivery of appropriate cattle genotypes to eastern African smallholder farmers through in-vitro embryo production technologies - the technical procedures, prospects and challenges; 12. Levels of some nutrients and non-essential metals in cows' whole milk from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; 13. Water, water everywhere and when found not fit to drink; 14. Foundation for analytical science and technology in Africa and its role in the preservation of endangered species; 15. Jua kali metallurgical industries as point sources of the heavy metals lead and cadmium to aquatic systems in Kenyan urban areas; 16. An assessment of effluent treatment to reduce heavy metal levels in effluent from a battery manufacturing concern; 17. Spectroscopic detection of gaseous ammonia in the environment; 18. Jatropha curcas l. As a source for the production of biodiesel in Kenya; 19. Jatropha biodiesel as an alternative transport fuel in Zimbabwe; 20. Biomass, bio-based products and bioenergy; 21. Municipal solid waste as a resource rather than a waste. A preliminary study of biomass from Githurai market, an open market in the outskirts of Nairobi city; Subject Index