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Newsletter Number 18
October 2004
Evaluation of People and Plants (P&P) 
The evaluation process is now completed, and a detailed final document has 
been produced. This was carried out through postal and e-mail questionnaires, 
interviews, review of publications, and separate evaluations of the livelihoods 
aspects in Nepal, Kenya, and Pakistan. 
To quote from the evaluation report:
"The overall conclusion is that P&P has been a highly successful project. 
When it began there was relatively little local community involvement in 
conservation in the developing world. In addition there was inadequate material 
available for teaching and capacity building in this area. The success of P&P is 
that it has both been involved in the field in practical projects with local 
people and in training and the production of material for use in training. To have 
achieved all this with a small team in just twelve years is impressive. In 
addition to the local communities that P&P has encouraged into a more 
sustainable use of their resources, the initiative has left a tremendous legacy of 
trained people, new organisations and books, manuals, handbooks, videos, and a 
web-site. The idea of achieving its objectives through a focus on applied 
ethnobotany has been beneficial both to the science of ethnobotany and to 
conservation. This approach must not be lost when P&P ceases to function. P&P has provided 
examples and materials that will allow the use of this approach to continue 
in many places for the benefit of conservation." 
Some details from the extensive full report are outlined below: 
P&P has successfully used applied ethnobotany in local communities for the 
benefit of conservation and the sustainable use of resources and to improve the 
livelihood of local peoples. 
The publications -- books, handbooks and working papers -- have been very 
popular and are widely used by field workers and teachers in many countries in 
the developed and developing world. The Spanish and Chinese translations of the 
books have also been useful. 
Over its life, P&P has played a major role in capacity building in applied 
ethnobotany and it has helped to train 86 people from 10 developing countries. 
These people have typically been trained over 2-year periods, during which they 
have spent substantial periods undertaking participatory field work with 
communities, supervised locally and with mentors from the People and Plants team, 
and focussing on local conservation and development issues. Many hundreds of 
other people have attended shorter P&P courses in those countries where P&P has 
operated, and a number of international workshops have also been run. Many of 
those who have received substantial training under the programme are now 
active in community work. Trained people and publications will be a long-term 
legacy of P&P. 
Work in Kenya coastal forest has successfully helped to make woodcarvers 
change from using scarce native trees to fast-growing alternatives such as neem, a 
species that has the advantage of producing other products along the way. It 
is vitally important to see through to completion the process of certification 
of Good Wood in Kenya. The Good Wood project could easily be extended to 
other areas of Kenya, and to Tanzania. 
Work in Nepal has built capacity in ethnobotany and has helped to draw 
attention to Tibetan Traditional Medicine as practised by the traditional doctors 
known as amchis. It has also raised awareness about the need to conserve 
medicinal plants and taken some steps towards community-based management of wild 
medicinal plant resources and cultivation of some over-harvested species. This 
work could be expanded to other parts of the Himalayas where Tibetan culture is 
found. The evaluation recommends a follow-up community-based medicinal plant 
conservation project in the Kangchenjunga Conservation Area, although this 
project would have to be based on somewhat different approaches since Tibetan 
medicine is not much used in the area. 
In Pakistan, P&P has been particularly successful in establishing ethnobotany 
in the curriculum of universities, and in training ethnobotanists. The field 
projects at Ayubia National Park and Swat are both stimulating the sustainable 
use of plant resources and conservation. At Ayubia the establishment of 
fuelwood and fodder nurseries has been useful. It is recommended that a new 
community-based forest programme be established based on the P&P approach and the 
capacity built. 
P&P has helped with the formation of nine NGOs in ethnobotany, including 
People and Plants International (PPI) which should spread the lessons learned from 
P&P and provide an international knowledge network for the community-based 
conservation approach. It is thought that some of the young ethnobotanical NGOs 
supported in their early years in developing countries by People and Plants 
will need continued help to survive. 
The P&P website receives over 3000 visits a month and is considered a useful 
resource by many people. It is good that it is to be continued through 
collaboration with Chinese ethnobotanists. The P&P database is also a useful resource 
and a suitable home should be found to maintain it. 
People and Plants International (PPI) 
The People and Plants Initiative comes to an end in December 2004, and will 
be succeeded by a new, independent non-profit organisation called People and 
Plants International which will continue the work of the WWF, UNESCO and Kew 
partnership.
The creation of PPI followed a process of careful consultation with a wide 
range of colleagues in a series of workshops in Oxford UK, Bogor Indonesia, 
Kunming China, and in East Africa (Kenya and Uganda). 
Building a network for sustainable plant management and conservation 
People and Plants International (PPI), which builds on the 12-year People and 
Plants Initiative, a partnership of the Worldwide Fund for Nature, UNESCO, 
and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, was formed in January 2004. As a 
collaborative "knowledge network" of experienced professionals who practice applied 
ethnoscience, PPI represents a new way of organizing international collaboration for 
research, conservation, and management of plant resources. 
In particular, PPI will:
Evaluate conservation and resource development strategies, identifying those 
likely to be more effective
Mentor young professionals from developing countries in action-orientated 
research through individual tuition & field courses
Disseminate recommendations to communities, managers of resources, 
policy-makers and scientists 
Initial project areas will include Africa (Southern and East), Australia, 
Brazil, Cameroon, China, Mexico, and Papua New Guinea. 
PPI is led by Dr. Tony Cunningham, Program Director.
PPI's website, using the same address as this website, peopleandplants.org, 
will be up and running by late 2004.
For further information contact the PPI Coordinator, Louis Putzel. 
Publications 
New People and Plants Books 
The next books in the People and Plants Conservation Series are:

Forests, Livelihoods and the International Woodcarving Trade: carving out a 
future
Edited by: Anthony B. Cunningham, Bruce M. Campbell and Brian Belcher

Plant Identification, Conservation and Management: methods for producing 
user-friendly field guides
Edited by: Anna Lawrence & William Hawthorne

People and Plant Conservation: an ecosystem approach to conservation
Alan Hamilton 
These are the final books to be produced from People and Plants, but People 
and Plants International plan to publish more books in the future. 
Chinese Editions
The Chinese translation of Applied Ethnobotany is now available, with a 
special additional chapter about the application of ethnobotany in China.
People, Plants and Protected Areas has also been translated into Chinese, 
again with extra local information, and is also now published.
We are most grateful to Prof Pei Shengji (Kunming) for arranging and 
overseeing these translations. 
Spanish Editions
Explotando el mercado verde
Ed: Shanley, Pierce, Laird & Guillen
Recently published, this is the seventh of the P&P books to be made available 
in Spanish, through Editorial Nordan-Comunidad, Montevideo. 
Subscribe 
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The newsletter, reflecting the activities of People and Plants, is compiled 
by Martin Walters 
People & Plants Editor and Web-manager
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