[MPWG] NWFP-Digest-L No. 6/05
Patricia_DeAngelis at fws.gov
Patricia_DeAngelis at fws.gov
Fri Jun 3 11:45:48 CDT 2005
The latest FAO NWFP-Digest-L is available at:
www.fao.org/forestry/site/12980/en
Below I've pasted the entire table of contents for the June issue but only
included the articles regarding North American native medicinals (or
NTFPs). There are lots of other interesting articles - I encourage you to
check it out.
PS: None of the hyperlinks work, you'll have to paste the url's into your
web browser. To see the full newsletter (and past ones), follow the url
below.
Patricia S. De Angelis, Ph.D.
Botanist - Division of Scientific Authority
Chair - Plant Conservation Alliance - Medicinal Plant Working Group
US Fish & Wildlife Service
4401 N. Fairfax Dr., Suite 750
Arlington, VA 22203
703-358-1708 x1753
FAX: 703-358-2276
Working for the conservation and sustainable use of our green natural
resources.
<www.nps.gov/plants/medicinal>
----- Forwarded by Patricia De Angelis/ARL/R9/FWS/DOI on 06/03/2005 10:56
AM -----
"Etherington,
Tina (FOPP)" To: nwfp-digest-L at mailserv.fao.org
<Tina.Etheringto cc:
n at fao.org> Subject: NWFP-Digest-L No. 6/05
06/02/2005 06:07
AM
NWFP-Digest-L
No. 6/05
Welcome to FAO’s NWFP-Digest-L, a free e-mail journal that covers all
aspects of non-wood forest products. A special thank you to all those who
have shared information.
Back issues of the Digest may be found on FAO's NWFP home page:
www.fao.org/forestry/site/12980/en
==============================================================
IN THIS ISSUE:
PRODUCTS
1. Agarwood: New tree species found in Central
Highlands of Vietnam
2. Bamboo: Rare bamboo flowering in Gujarat yields
tonnes of seeds
3. Bamboo is underutilized in India
4. Bamboo proposed as an aesthetic alternative to
steel fences
5. Bamboo: Villages in Fiji learn bamboo furniture
trade
6. Brazil nuts: Reforestation with Bertholletia
excelsa
7. Bushmeat: Monkeys infect bushmeat hunters
8. Bushmeat: WHO confirms Ebola outbreak in Congo,
nine dead
9. Ginseng legislation
10. Lantana: The alternative to bamboo
11. Medicinal plants: indigenous knowledge
12. Medicinal plants to be nurtured in Orissa, India
13. Medicinal plants: Artemisia annua
14. Medicinal plants: Artemisia annua derivative 'kills
worms that cause bilharzia'
15. Ramps: Demand for wild leek prompts harvest limit
16. Seabuckthorn: Harvesting seabuckthorn in Nepal
17. Vegetable ivory: Could plant ivory save elephants?
COUNTRY INFORMATION
18. Azerbaijan: Hirkan preserve to be added to UNESCO's
Natural Heritage list?
19. Bangladesh: Forests for sustainable growth
20. Brazil gets new drug based on local knowledge
21. Brazil: Amazon tribe faces 'annihilation
22. Greece: Beekeepers’ insects killing pines
23. India: UP to spread honey 'sweetness' in global
market
24. India: Sandalwood Protection Squad
25. India: Freedom of the forest
26. India: Plea for including forest-dwellers in ST Bill
27. Italy: Honey producers protest because "wood honey”
is not legal
28. Malaysia: Perak to protect tualang trees due to role
in honey production
29. Russia: Tomsk Region and its forests
NEWS
30. Biodiversity: Protecting biodiversity 'may clash
with pursuit of MDGs'
31. Biodiversity: World map of plant biodiversity
32. Equator Ventures: UNDP offers up to $500,000 to
those who promote conservation
33. Nobel Peace Laureate urges Congo Basin Forest
Conservation
34. Fellowships: Hosei University (Japan)
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
35. Tropical forest conservation volunteers and staff
required
36. World Bank: Young Professionals Program
EVENTS
37. International Symposium on Herbal Medicine,
Phytopharmaceuticals and Other Natural Products: Trends and Advances
38. African healing wisdom: from tradition to current
application and research
39. ITTO regional workshop on sustainable development of
rattan sector in Asia
40. Forests in the balance: Linking tradition and
technology. XXII IUFRO World Congress
LITERATURE REVIEW AND WEB SITES
41. Small-medium forestry, enterprises for poverty,
reduction and sustainability
42. Other publications of interest
43. Web sites and e-zines
REQUESTS
44. Request for information: baobab fruit juice
45. Request for information: Cardamom in Vietnam
MISCELLANEOUS
46. Ice Age forest due for spruce up
47. Loch's new forest will be step back in time
48. Malaysia: Resettled orang asli get keys to their new
homes
49. Payout idea to save rainforests
50. Study calls Canadian forest a continental bird
nursery
BACK TO TOP
PRODUCTS
9. Ginseng legislation
Source: Wisconsin Ag Connection - Marshfield, WI, USA, 22 April 2005
U.S. Senator Russ Feingold has re-introduced his Ginseng Harvest Labeling
Act. This bill would protected both consumers and producers of ginseng by
requiring that the product be sold at retail with a label clearly
indicating the country that the ginseng was harvested in.
"Wisconsin ginseng especially is widely known as some of the
highest quality ginseng produced anywhere in the world, making it the
target of knock offs world wide," Feingold said. "This bill aims to supply
consumers with reliable labeling of ginseng so there is no confusion as to
where it was grown, what quality it is, or whether it was grown using
dangerous pesticides."
Feingold introduced the bill because smugglers from Canada and
Asia have labeled their ginseng product as "Wisconsin-grown," misleading
consumers and undercutting domestic ginseng growers. Wisconsin ginseng
commands a premium price in world markets because of its high quality and
low chemical residue.
For full story, please see:
www.wisconsinagconnection.com/story-state.cfm?Id=498&yr=2005
BACK TO TOP
11. Medicinal plants: indigenous knowledge
Source: Mongabay.com – USA, 14 May 2005
How did rainforest shamans gain their boundless knowledge on medicinal
plants? The short answer – no one really knows.
Ethnobotanists, people who study the relationship between
plants and people, have long been aware that rainforest dwellers have an
astounding knowledge of medicinal plants.
For thousands of years, indigenous groups have extensively used
rainforest plants for their health needs – the peoples of Southeast Asian
forests used 6 500 species, while Northwest Amazonian forest dwellers used
1 300 species for medicinal purposes.
Today pharmacologists and ethnobotanists work with native
healers and shamans in identifying prospects for development of new drugs.
The yield from these efforts can be quite good – a study in Samoa found
that 86% of the plants used by local healers yielded biological activity in
humans – and the potential from such collaboration is huge with
approximately one half of the anti-cancer drugs developed sine the 1960s
being derived from plants.
Perhaps more staggering than their boundless knowledge of
medicinal plants is how shamans and medicine-men could have acquired such
knowledge. There are over 100 000 plant species in tropical rainforests
around the globe, how did indigenous peoples know what plants to use and
combine especially when so many are either poisonous or have no effect when
ingested. Many treatments combine a wide variety of completely unrelated
innocuous plant ingredients to produce a dramatic effect. Some like curare
of the Amazon are orally inactive, but when administered to muscle tissue
are lethal.
No one knows how this knowledge was derived. Most say trial and
error. Native forest dwellers say the knowledge was bestowed upon them by
spirits of the rainforest. Whatever the mechanism, evidence from Amazonian
natives suggests that indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants can develop
over a relatively short period of time.
Ethnobotanists studying medicinal plant use by recently
contacted tribes like the Waorani of Ecuador and the Yanomani of Brazil and
Venezuela reported a relatively limited and highly selective use of
medicinal plants. They had plants for treating fungal infections, insect
and snake bites, dental ailments, parasites, pains and traumatic injuries.
Their repertoire did not include plants to treat any Western diseases. In
contrast, indigenous groups that have had a history of continuing contact
with the outside world have hundreds of medicinal plants used for a wide
range of conditions. It seems that after contact, in response to the
introduction of Western diseases, these tribes accelerated their
experimentation with medicinal plants. This notion contradicts the idea
that indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants was accumulated slowly, over
hundreds of years.
These questions are becoming increasingly academic as
rainforests around the world continue to fall – the Amazon alone has lost
more than 200,000 miles of forest since the 1970s – and indigenous
populations vanish or become assimilated, often by choice, into mainstream
society.
As youths from these communities leave their traditional
societies, native cultures are forgotten and considerable knowledge about
the processes for developing new medicinal recipes are lost forever.
Anthropologist Wade Davis has written two books that explore
both the indigenous knowledge of plants and the disappearing cultures of
the world. One River touches on the history of ethnobotany in the Amazon
along with a plethora of other topics, while Light at the Edge of the
World: A Journey Through the Realm of Vanishing Cultures presents
photographs and stories from his 30 years of exploring the planet's most
remote regions. After reading these works, you will probably come away with
the understanding that it's important to know what we're losing before it's
gone.
For full story, please see:
http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0515-rhett_butler.html
BACK TO TOP
15. Ramps: Demand for wild leek prompts harvest limit
Source: The Associated Press, 3 May 2005
RALEIGH, N.C. (USA): Demand for ramps (Allium tricoccum) – a wild leek
prized for its strong flavour – is expanding far from the mountains,
propelled by a craze for regional and seasonal food. So great is the appeal
that officials are trying to limit the annual harvest.
Beginning next year, civic groups that pick wild ramps in the
Nantahala National Forest for use in spring festivals will have to abide by
new Forest Service rules that dictate where and how to pick the plants as
well as levy a 50-cent-a-pound fee. The forest is in far southwestern North
Carolina.
The reason for the change: The government worries that big digs
of ramps are straining natural populations. A Forest Service researcher
eager to help preserve the festivals is accompanying the civic groups on
this year's digs to get a better handle on the true toll from their hauls.
"If we don't figure out a way to manage them, they'll be gone," researcher
Jim Chamberlain said. "If there are no more ramps, there will be no more
ramp festivals."
People in North Carolina still hike miles to pick enough ramps
– which taste like a mix of garlic and scallions – for special suppers
during the four weeks or so that the plants show themselves each spring.
In addition to other rules, the Forest Service says groups
digging for festivals will not be allowed to take more than half of the
plants they find in every square foot of a ramp patch.
Volunteer firehouses, rescue squads and civic groups have long
staged annual ramp festivals to raise money for community causes.
Organizers of the biggest festivals collectively pick more than 3,000
pounds of ramps each year, Chamberlain estimates. It takes 40 to 80 plants
to make a pound.
Ramps range naturally from Canada to North Georgia and west to
Missouri and Minnesota. In Southern Appalachia, ramps are found in rich
moist cove hardwood forests, and prefer elevations above 3,500 feet.
But demand for ramps is expanding far from the mountains,
fueled by a desire for fresh, interesting ingredients.
In 2002, ramps became so popular that the National Park Service
banned ramp collecting in the Great Smoky Mountains for fear they would be
harvested out of existence.
For full story, please see:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/03/AR2005050300229.html
BACK TO TOP
Check out the following website - the Appalachians stick out like a sore
thumb!! In other words, it's one of the most diverse regions in all of
North America!!
31. Biodiversity: World map of plant biodiversity
Source: PhysOrg.com - Evergreen, VA, USA, 12 May 2005
For years, experts have been calling for an improved database that would
enable them to develop more effective global nature conservation
strategies. Botanists at the University of Bonn have now taken a major step
in this direction with the publication, in the Journal of Biogeography, of
a world map of plant biodiversity.
The atlas is arranged in 867 zones, known as ecoregions. "This
makes the data on the world's plant diversity accessible in accordance with
a common geographical standard," explains Gerold Kier, head of the project
at Bonn University's Nees Institute for Plant Biodiversity. This work, says
Kier, represents a significant advance because the results are needed both
for nature conservation planners and those engaged in basic research.
A central innovation here is the breakdown of data by
vegetation zone. Tropical rainforests are, unsurprisingly, shown to be
among the most species-rich areas on earth. Indeed, Borneo's lowland
rainforest is the most diverse of all, with around 10 000 plant species. By
comparison, the whole of the Federal Republic of Germany contains some 2
700 different native plants.
"However, we have found out for the first time where, within
each of the different vegetation zones, plant biodiversity is highest,"
says Professor Wilhelm Barthlott, founder of the working group and Director
of the Nees Institute. It has emerged, for example, that the Sundarbans
region (which spreads across Bangladesh and India), the world's most
species-rich mangrove area, has not so far been included on many nature
conservation priority lists.
An important "spin-off" from the project is a map showing how
thoroughly the plant world has been studied in different regions. Among the
"white patches" on the map, showing areas for which floristic knowledge is
very poor, we find the southern Amazon basin and North Colombia, which are
two of the world's most biodiverse areas. "There is also little known about
the biodiversity that exists in large parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran,
the north of China and, surprisingly, even Japan," adds Kier. Of all the
different types of vegetation zone, the flooded savannas and grasslands are
the least explored by botanists. Greater efforts are needed in future to
discover more about the plant life they contain.
The project was conducted as a component of the large-scale
BIOLOG-BIOTA programme, funded by German's Federal Ministry of Education
and Research (BMBF) and run with the cooperation of the World Wildlife Fund
(WWF).
For full story, please see: www.physorg.com/news4072.html
42. Other publications of interest
FAO. 2005. State of the World's Forests: CD-ROM collection 1995-2005. Rome,
Italy.
FAO has published State of the World’s Forests – the Organization’s
flagship publication presenting the latest information on major policy and
institutional developments and key issues concerning the forest sector –
every other year since 1995. In coordination with the publication of State
of the World’s Forests 2005, FAO has released a CD-ROM containing the
entire collection of the report since its first edition. It contains all
six issues of the publication in Arabic, Chinese, English, French and
Spanish. This unique resource provides a ready overview of the situation
and development of forest resources over the past decade.
For more information, see www.fao.org/forestry/site/26161/en
FAO. 2005. FAO participatory forestry publications on CD-ROM. Rome, Italy.
This CD-ROM contains 15 years of publications produced by FAO and its
partners, mainly under the Forests, Trees and People Programme (FTPP).
FTPP, which started in 1987 and ended in 2002, was an international
community forestry programme designed to increase social and economic
equity and improve well-being, especially of the poor, through
collaborative and sustainable management of trees, forests and other
natural resources. The CD-ROM includes more than 70 publications on
participatory forestry and related subjects, organized according to series,
theme and alphabetical order. It is hoped that these publications will
contribute to strengthening human and institutional capacities that are
necessary for the support of locally based sustainable management of forest
resources.
Available from: Dominique.Reeb at fao.org or www.fao.org/forestry/index.jsp
Hiremath, A.J. 2004. The ecological consequences of managing forests for
non-timber products. Conserv. Soc. [Online] 2(2):211-216.
Sayer, J., et al. 2004. The restoration of forest biodiversity and
ecological values. Forest Ecol. Manag. 201(1): 3-11.
Tindall, J.R., Gerrath, J.A., Melzer, M., McKendry, K., Husband, B.C., and
Boland, G.J. 2004. Ecological status of American chestnut (Castanea dentata
) in its native range in Canada. Can. J. Forest Res. 34(12):2554-2563.
BACK TO TOP
43. Web sites and e-zines
From: FAO’s NWFP Programme
OK - this may not just be NTFPs - but it has to do with the forests they
grow in!
Chestnut Links
Contains many links to various aspects of chestnuts.
www.utc.edu/Faculty/Hill-Craddock/chestnutlinks.html
FAO Forestry Photos database
The FAO Forestry Photos database contains more than 1 000 forestry-related
images searchable by such fields as country, region, keyword, caption,
human and forestry content and photographer. A simple free-text search is
also available, which searches all text in the record. A useful thumbnail
feature enables users to browse the contents rapidly. Photos can be easily
downloaded in high resolution for print and in lower resolution for use on
the Web.
www.fao.org/mediabase/forestry
Forestry Images website
A source for forest health, natural resources, and silviculture images. A
joint project of the University of Georgia and the USDA Forest Service.
Image categories include: Forest Pests (Insects, Disease, Other Damage
Agents); Trees, Plants and Stand Types (Trees, Understory and Rangeland
Plants), Silvicultural Practices; Wildlife; and People, Places and Scenes.
www.forestryimages.org
Participatory Natural Resource Management Resource (PNRM)
www.prgaprogram.org.
Power Tools Website
An innovative website providing a compendium of guidance materials on
approaches and tactics for policy influence by natural resource managers.
Documents on the website are available in English, French, Portuguese &
Spanish.
www.policy-powertools.org
The following website is interesting to look at in conjunction with the
plant biodiversity one mentioned under #42 (above).
The Human Footprint Dataset
www.ciesin.columbia.edu/wild_areas/
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