Posters and Community Maps
Illustration, art, digital photography and cartography provide powerful tools for inspiring, motivating and communicating in ways that can complement written documents. Using a wide range of visual approaches and skills, People and Plants collaborators produce posters and community maps to assist in the transmission of technical or socially-valued knowledge among a wide range of actors.
People from the Sierra de Zongolica drawing a map of their community.
Germination and propagation of jonote trees (Trema micrantha), Mexico
Papel amate, bark paper, is an indigenous handicraft whose origins date back to pre-Hispanic times and currently provides a major source of income to hundreds of families in several communities in the state of Puebla, where bark is collected and paper manufactured. Raw material for the production of papel amate is obtained from a fast-growing species, jonote (Trema micrantha), which grows opportunistically in shade coffee plantations.
This poster presents simple and practical guidelines for germinating jonote seeds, allowing artisans and coffee growers to cultivate and better manage a highly valued forest resource. It is one of several community guides produced as part of an Overbrook Foundation-supported project on the production and management of 'Jonote' (Trema micrantha) for artisanal bark paper manufacture. The goal is to give coffee farmers and handicraft producers useful tools and knowledge with which to manage their forest resources more effectively, and derive greater social, ecological and economic benefits from their traditional activities. As part of this project, Patricia Negreros, Adolfo Rebolledo and Citlalli Lopez assisted bark paper producers and coffee farmers to develop practical, simple and effective ways for propagating and reforesting with jonote. Despite being a fast-growing species, the wood from jonote also has good potential for use in carpentry and furniture-making, and People and Plants promoted its use in small-scale carpentry through production of manuals and in workshops.
Download Manual here.
Women handicraft weavers, Mexico
Working closely with several women weavers and their family-based organizations in the Sierra de Zongolica, graduate student Belinda Contreras produced a set of four large, hardy, waterproof, visually attractive and informative banners on the plants, skills and knowledge used by women to prepare their famous weavings. Belinda has been collaborating with Citalli López on Overbrook-supported and other activities within the Knowledge Exchange Program, working with local producers in Zongolica to revitalize forest-based local knowledge systems in order to improve social and environmental well-being.
Wild maguey, Mexico
People and Plants worked with two NGOs - Grupo de Estudios Ambientales "GEA" and Sansekan - on a project supporting community management of wild maguey (Agave spp.), a plant widely used in the production of fermented beverages such as pulque and mezcal, and which has great economic and cultural importance in the economically-deprived region of La Montaña de Guerrero, Mexico. These posters were produced during a workshop with villagers, and were meant to raise awareness of the importance and vulnerability of maguey and its pollinators.
Black Dammar (Canarium strictum), Southeast Asia
Black Dammar is a resin used by indigenous communities in India, Bangladesh and northern Burma for spiritual and medicinal purposes. These posters provide practical information and guidelines on the cultivation, use, quality, characteristics and sustainability of harvesting the resin. They were produced by People and Plants in collaboration with the Keystone Foundation to communicate research results to communities.
Vegetable dyes used in traditional weaving, Indonesia
This series of posters were produced by People and Plants and Indonesian partners Yayasan Pecinta Budaya Bebali and Threads of Life, and were distributed to a large number of weaving communities - representing 14 language groups across seven islands in eastern Indonesia - who use the bark and leaves of several species of Symplocos as a red dye in their fabrics. Though intensely dependent on this plant, most weaving communities have never seen the actual plant or are aware of its endangered status.
