In a megadiverse archipelagic country, plant data remain scarcely available. Indonesia has an area almost equal to Europe, but the number of internationally registered herbaria is limited. There is also significant inequality between the national herbarium (BO) and regional herbaria. Only a handful of institutions, especially regional universities, have their own herbarium as a scientific plant resource. Many people who are willing to learn about plants need to go to Bogor, which is sometimes like going from London to Rome just to look for plant specimens collected from their backyard.
To strengthen the plant diversity resources, local herbaria should be initiated. This is to avoid dependence of all bioregions in Indonesia on the Bogor herbarium, which so far has become the main backbone of information in Indonesian botany. Many people are really interested in developing their resources for plant diversity, but most often they are not taught or informed about how important it is, and how to make their herbarium recognised by the scientific community worldwide.
Through partnerships with many colleagues in some universities, particularly from biology or forestry departments, I help them to facilitate registration to Index Herbariorum, providing advice on how it can be used to promote evidence-based science. Ironically, this has not been done for most research related to plant species in the country.
To date, I have facilitated the activities, including registration and other development, in the following herbaria:
1. MEDA – Herbarium Medanense
- Registered in 2023
- Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Sumatra Utara – Sumatra
2. Herbarium of Department of Biology, Universitas Negeri Makassar
- Registration in progress
- Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Negeri Makassar – Sulawesi.
For anyone interested in advise or technical help of registering herbarium to Index Herbariorum (IH), please feel free to contact me through email here.