Publisher Profile

Tell us about yourself. What sparked your interest in science, and what did you study? What inspired you to get involved with your society?

From a young age, I was interested in plants and botany. I did my biology undergraduate degree at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) in Belgium, where I got involved in genetic engineering and plant tissue culture. In those days, military service was still compulsory for men once they finished their studies, but I chose to do replacement service abroad. I was sent to Kenya and took up a position a lecturer in the Botany Department of the University of Nairobi. It turned out to be quite difficult to do research in my field of specialisation at the university, so I relocated to the East African Herbarium of the National Museums of Kenya (NMK) where I started a project on in-vitro propagation of threatened indigenous orchids. Since no one at the herbarium was specialised in identifying orchids, I had to do all the collecting and identification myself and, in the process, I became more and more interested in orchid taxonomy. After 10 years in Kenya, I got the opportunity to do a PhD at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. I did a phylogenetic study on the large African orchid genus Disa in which I could combine my skills in molecular biology with the newly acquired ones in taxonomy. Once this was successfully completed and after a brief stint in Kenya again, I got an academic appointment as a botany lecturer and curator of the Bews Herbarium at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, where I have been for the last 15 years. So, 35 years after leaving Belgium, I’m still in Africa and still working on orchids.

I got involved with the East Africa Natural History Society (EANHS), now Nature Kenya, in the early 1990’s while working at the East African Herbarium. The EANHS was then transitioning from a rather old-style natural history society to a modern conservation organisation. While the EANHS had always had close ties with the museum, indeed it had started the museum, we tried to rejuvinate those ties through a make-over of the Journal of East African Natural History (JEANH) and an increased involvement of NMK scientists in the journal.

Tell us about your society and your scientific community. What inspired your society to establish this journal?

The Journal is as old as the Society itself. The EANHS was founded in 1909 and the first issue of The Journal of the East Africa and Uganda Natural History Society was published in January 1910. After several name and lay out changes, the journal had become an irregular publication in the early 1990’s. Single articles were published if and when they were ready. A new and more pro-active editorial team was recruited from Society members and staff from NMK and this resulted in the start of what we call the “Green Series” (referring to the green cover) under the new title Journal of East African Natural History. The idea was to bundle several articles in an issue and to produce two issues per year. Due to financial and logistical problems, at first this did not always happen. Nevertheless, the journal pulled through and got in an upwards trajectory thanks to support from external partners such as e.g., the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, The Africa Museum (Belgium), and BioOne, to name just a few. I became Editor-in-Chief around 1995.

What trends or challenges in your field are shaping the priorities of your society?

Very few journals accept still accept typical natural history papers i.e., papers directly based on observations in nature, despite the fact that observations form the basis of hypotheses on how nature functions. Natural history papers on the biodiversity of the wider eastern African region are our focus and thus one could consider the JEANH a niche journal. This could be conceived as a weakness, but I feel it is a strength. To give just one example, checklists are shunned by many journals, but our checklists, which are authoritative and underpinned by voucher material, are amongst our best cited papers.

Can you share a recent project or initiative from your society that has had a particularly meaningful impact on your community?

I feel that the JEANH is connecting biodiversity researchers in eastern Africa. I believe many foreign researchers got to know local researchers through our publication and have since developed fruitful collaborations. It is a small community and many of the researchers know each other, even if they specialize in a different group of organisms.

What trends, challenges, or opportunities do you see for your journal?

The publishing world has changed dramatically over the last 20 years or so. We have changed from a printed journal, distributed by mail, to an exclusively online publication. The challenges to keep up with technical requirements of an online journal are daunting to our small team. We are grateful to BioOne, which has assisted us in our journey, yet I still feel we have a long way to go. The exponential rise of predatory journals also has an impact on our activities, particularly on finding reviewers for our papers. Because we are a small journal, perhaps not all that widely known, our requests for reviewing a paper are often treated with suspicion or are deleted before they are even read.

How has your partnership with BioOne impacted your society’s ability to support its community and advance its mission? 

Money is always in short supply, particularly in Africa. Our collaboration with BioOne has allowed the JEANH to become financially independent and no longer be a drag on the scarce resources of Nature Kenya and NMK.

Why did your society and the Journal of East African Natural History choose to participate in our S2O pilot?

Our mission is to promote research in Africa, particularly research conducted by local scientists. They choose the JEANH not only because of its standing as a respected journal, but also because we do not charge our authors a single cent. Currently, our content on BioOne is behind a pay wall, although there are systems in place whereby scientist in low and middle-income countries can get access free of charge. Nevertheless, if we can offer our authors open access without having to pay for it and the JEANH still receives some income, then it is a no-brainer to become part of the S2O pilot.