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<CENTER><B>Newsletter Number 18</B><BR><FONT size=4>October 2004</CENTER>
<P><FONT size=5><B>Evaluation of People and Plants (P&P)</B>
<P><FONT size=2>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.
<P><B>To quote from the evaluation report:</B><BR>"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."
<P>Some details from the extensive full report are outlined below:
<P>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.
<P>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.
<P>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.
<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.
<P>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.
<P>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&P has helped with the formation of nine NGOs in ethnobotany, including <B>People and Plants International (PPI)</B> 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.
<P>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.
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<P><FONT size=5><B>People and Plants International (PPI)</B>
<P><FONT size=2>The People and Plants Initiative comes to an end in December 2004, and will be succeeded by a new, independent non-profit organisation called <B>People and Plants International</B> which will continue the work of the WWF, UNESCO and Kew partnership.<BR>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).
<P><FONT size=4><B>Building a network for sustainable plant management and conservation</FONT></B>
<P><FONT size=2>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.
<P>In particular, PPI will:<BR>Evaluate conservation and resource development strategies, identifying those likely to be more effective<BR>Mentor young professionals from developing countries in action-orientated research through individual tuition & field courses<BR>Disseminate recommendations to communities, managers of resources, policy-makers and scientists
<P>Initial project areas will include Africa (Southern and East), Australia, Brazil, Cameroon, China, Mexico, and Papua New Guinea.
<P>PPI is led by Dr. Tony Cunningham, Program Director.<BR>PPI's website, using the same address as this website, peopleandplants.org, will be up and running by late 2004.<BR>For further information contact the PPI Coordinator, <A title=mailto:lputzel@nybg.org href="mailto:lputzel@nybg.org">Louis Putzel</A>.
<P><FONT size=5><B>Publications</B></FONT>
<P><FONT size=3><B>New People and Plants Books</B></FONT>
<P><FONT size=2>
<P>The next books in the People and Plants Conservation Series are:<BR>
<LI><B>Forests, Livelihoods and the International Woodcarving Trade: carving out a future</B><BR>Edited by: Anthony B. Cunningham, Bruce M. Campbell and Brian Belcher<BR>
<LI><B>Plant Identification, Conservation and Management: methods for producing user-friendly field guides</B><BR>Edited by: Anna Lawrence & William Hawthorne<BR>
<LI><B>People and Plant Conservation: an ecosystem approach to conservation</B><BR>Alan Hamilton
<P>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.
<P><FONT size=3><B>Chinese Editions</B></FONT><BR>The Chinese translation of <B>Applied Ethnobotany</B> is now available, with a special additional chapter about the application of ethnobotany in China.<BR><B>People, Plants and Protected Areas</B> has also been translated into Chinese, again with extra local information, and is also now published.<BR>We are most grateful to Prof Pei Shengji (Kunming) for arranging and overseeing these translations.
<P><FONT size=3><B>Spanish Editions</B></FONT><BR><B>Explotando el mercado verde</B><BR>Ed: Shanley, Pierce, Laird & Guillen<BR>Recently published, this is the seventh of the P&P books to be made available in Spanish, through <A title=http://www.nordan.com.uy/ href="http://www.nordan.com.uy/" target=_blank>Editorial Nordan-Comunidad</A>, Montevideo.
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<P><FONT size=3>The newsletter, reflecting the activities of People and Plants, is compiled by <B>Martin Walters</B> <BR>People & Plants Editor and Web-manager</P></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></LI></BODY></HTML>