Zambezian regional biodiversity studies have focused mostly on dry wooded savannas (Miombo), with much less known about wet savannas, in particular those developed around springheads. Details of plant distribution, species richness and vegetation structure in wet savannas in the Katanga-Zambian center of endemism are very poorly documented. In both Kundelungu (Democratic Republic of Congo) and West Lunga (North Western Zambia) National Parks, wet savanna ecosystems have developed in seepage areas which represent hotspots of narrow endemic species that have never been systematically explored. Recent floristic data records from both areas are very scarce and the conservation status of many narrow endemics cannot be evaluated due to data deficiency. The region’s wet savannas are under threat due to drainage, urban development, and the mining industry. This unique transboundary effort between Zambian and DRC institutions proposes training for up to 15 young career botanists and taxonomists, and would conduct surveys to collect field data to expand plant collections in the Herbaria of both Lubumbashi and Kitwe, especially for grass and cypergrass species serving to inform conservation and sustainable management of these unique grassland ecosystems.

The Highlighting Plant Diversity of Wet Savanna Springheads within the Katanga- Zambian Centre of Endemism project aims at developing an understanding of distribution and diversity of springhead savannas within two national parks of the Central African Copperbelt (CACB) , the region with over 400 years of mining, and the world’s largest and highest-grade sedimentary copper province and one of the world’s largest reserves of cobalt.

Direct objectives are:

• Identify the factors driving plant species distribution and abundance within springhead savannas.
• Undertake an initial survey in these inadequately known habitats.
• Sample along transects plant diversity in relationship with habitat parameters.
• Provide taxonomical training in grass and cypergrass to trainees of the two countries.
• Capacity development in managers of the two national parks in data collection and management.
• Develop a platform for data sharing for the stakeholders in this project.

Professor Stephen Syampungani (a Savanna Woodland Ecologist) is the holder of the Oliver R Tambo Africa Chair Initiative (ORTARChI) of Environment and Development at the Copperbelt University. He has extensive working knowledge of Central and Southern African woodland ecosystems with his current research linking rural livelihoods to sustainable Zambezian ecosystem management and utilization. He also has been working on forest degradation, ecosystem resilience and rehabilitation of degraded forest ecosystems from anthropogenic disturbances.  Additionally, Stephen is an Extra Ordinary Professor under the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Pretoria

Edouard Ilunga wa Ilunga is a Professor of Botany at the Université de Lubumbashi, in southern Democratic Republic of the Congo and concurrently a Postdoctoral Fellow in Plant Systematics and Ecology at the Copperbelt University.
His research focuses on plant community analysis and ecological restoration in both metalliferous habitats and high-plateau savannas. He is an active taxonomist contributing to the Flore d’Afrique Centrale (covering the D.R. Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi) and is the author of the Phyllanthaceae and Verbenaceae volumes in the Central African Flora series.
As part of this project, he will investigate the plant diversity of wet savanna springheads within the Katanga–Zambian center of endemism.