Minimal Maintenance Costs, Herbarium Manokwariese Specimen Collection In Papua Threatened To Damage

Secretary of the Center for Biodiversity Research, University of Papua Elieser Sirami showing plant specimens from the Herbarium Manokwariese collection (Via ANTARA)

PAPUA - The preserved collection of plant specimens in the Manokwariese Herbarium managed by the Center for Biodiversity Research, University of Papua in Manokwari City, West Papua Province, is in danger of being damaged due to the lack of availability of maintenance costs.

"As managers of the Manokwariese Herbarium, we are overwhelmed because of the minimal (availability) of operational costs for maintenance," said Secretary of the University of Papua Biodiversity Research Center (UNIPA) Elieser Sirami in Manokwari, West Papua, Antara, Friday, June 3.

Herbarium Manokwariese since 1950 has collected about 21,000 plant specimens in Tanah Papua and some of the herbarium collections are plant specimens from the 1950s to the 1960s.

"To save 3,000 specimens with the code BW (Bozwezen) Nederland Nieuw Guinea or collections from the 1950s-1960s from the Dutch era, we can only treat them with a manual cooling system," he said.

He said that Herbarium Manokwariese also did not have enough officers to carry out maintenance and recording of plant collections at the Research Center for Biodiversity, University of Papua on a regular basis.

"Currently there is only one manpower managing the Herbarium Manokwariese, so it is really difficult for us to treat thousands of specimens," he said.

Herbarium Manokwariese technician Filep Mambor said that the Herbarium Manokwariese collection includes plant specimens from botanists in the Dutch colonial era to botanical researchers today.

"Herbarium Manokwariese since 1959 has been well known at the international level," he said, adding that the specimen collection of Herbarium Manokwariese was used as a reference in naming plant species.