Isolepis omissa

Despite its designation, the Simen Mountains National Park (SMNP), where three of the four herbarium specimens were collected, is threatened by various anthropogenic factors with overgrazing identified as the predominant threat to the integrity of the park by the SMNP management authority. The Park is subject to heavy grazing pressure from livestock belonging to herders who bring their animals into the park. In 1996 the habitat quality was judged to be poor and habitat quantity ‘very poor’, with less than 40% of grassland habitat remaining (BirdLife International 2023) and the Simen National Park (SNP), located within the boundary of the larger SMNP, was placed on the World Heritage in Danger List between 1996 and 2017. Despite the introduction of no-grazing zones, and the reinstatement of the SNP as a World Heritage site in 2017, over 60% of the park is still subject to high grazing pressure, with grazing rates estimated to be fourteen times what is sustainable.

Despite the relocation of human land users to outside the park, other resource pressures include firewood collection and cultivation, with land that was previously unattractive for agriculture increasingly being converted (IUCN World Heritage Outlook 2020). The conservation outlook for the SNP was considered to be of Significant Concern in the 2020 IUCN assessment.

A further threat to the grassland habitat of the species is fire. A nationwide fire-exclusion policy is in place as part of Ethiopia's REDD+ climate mitigation strategy, and there is increasing evidence that its effect has been to exacerbate the threat of wildfires which become more likely with the accumulation of flammable ericaceous biomass and an absence of managed fuel breaks (Gil-Romera et al. 2019, Livingstone et al. 2022). With climate change, an increase in the incidence and severity of droughts can be expected, and consequently destructive wildfires on a larger scale. In 2019 uncontrolled fires spread across the Gich plateau, one of the three collecting localities of the species, causing considerable damage to c. 787 ha of ericaceous forest and adjacent grassland (IUCN World Heritage Outlook 2020). Climate change inducing habitat shift and alteration is considered a significant threat to this species, as it appears to be confined to the Afroalpine ecosystem and is already growing at the highest elevations available. Such a shift has already been observed in the Simen Mountains over a relatively short period of 30–40 years (Hurni 2005). The species may therefore face significant range contraction and the associated high risk of extinction (Dullinger et al. 2012).

The species has been recorded from the protected areas of the Simen Mountains National Park and Simen National Park World Heritage Site (UNEP-WCMC and IUCN 2023). The species is not subject to ex situ conservation (BGCI 2023). Research is needed with regard to population size, distribution and trends, and ex situ conservation in the form of seed-banking is recommended.