Newsletter Number 8
August 2002

People and Plants at Canterbury
Tony Cunningham writes:
The recent Annual People and Plants meeting was followed by a highly successful gathering at the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.
As a small programme, focussed on production of training materials and funding and field support for young researchers in developing countries, we have kept a low profile for 10 years.
In mid-July (14-18th) 2002, however, we decided to have a display of our materials (books, handbooks, working papers and videos) and organize a symposium at the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) meeting.
Close to 1000 people attended, and the theme of the meeting was an appropriate one: "People and Conservation". It was hosted by the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (University of Kent) and the British Ecological Society (who have reveiwed two of our PPI books in their Bulletin (vol. 33(1): 48-49, Feb. 2002).
For the first time, we were able to attend a meeting in full force, as the SCB meeting took place immediately after our annual Steering Committee meeting at WWF-UK. This enabled Yeshi Choden Lama (Nepal), Professor Pei-Sheng-ji (China) and Dr's Alan Hamilton, Susanne Schmitt (WWF-UK), Zabta Shamwari (Pakistan), Robert Höft (UNESCO), David Maingi (Kenya), Yildiz Aumeeruddy (PPI Himalaya Programme Officer) and myself, to attend. The delegates showed great interest in the People and Plants Initiative display table with its resource materials.
Our symposium, entitled "Sustained use and conservation of wild plants: building on traditional knowledge at the local people and protected area interface", co-organized by Tony Cunningham (PPI) and Nan Vance (from the US Forest Service) gave us the opportunity, as a group, to present some of the research findings from People and Plants supported studies and their practical application in Nepal, Uganda and Kenya.
There was a remarkably close fit with other papers in the session. In particular, the paper Yildiz presented with Suresh Ghimire ("Ecological sustainability and management of highly threatened medicinal plants in the Nepal Himalaya") complemented a study by Trevor Lantz and Nancy Turner (Univ. British Colombia) on Devil's Club (Oplopanax horridus) commercial harvest. Both papers represented a creative blend of traditional ecological knowledge and quantitative population ecology. Similarly, Gary Nabhan, Laurie Monti and Lisa Classen's paper on eco-labelling and ecological issues related to woodcarving in the south-western US complemented the papers by Robert Höft, Susanne Schmitt and David Maingi on our experience of the woodcarving trade and carving certification in Kenya.
My only regret was that our symposium was on the final day of the SCB meeting: after which we scattered to many corners of the world - and missed out on further discussions with our Canadian, Welsh and US colleagues on work of great common interest: e-mail is a poor second to face-to-face communication!

Some news about our field projects
Kenya
Considerable progress has been made towards certification of Kenyan carvings. The goal is to achieve FSC certification of woodcarving timber produced through agro-forestry systems on farms and in plantations. We are now working together with Oxfam Kenya, and this will help with the organization and training of farmers for certification. Much work is still needed in training carvers, woodcutters and farmers to understand and comply with the FSC requirements. This is well under way, led by Mr David Maingi, Good Wood Project Officer, based in Nairobi, and funding from the UK Darwin Initiative will allow this important work to be continued. A recently-agreed collaboration with Oxfam GB's Market Access Unit and Oxfam Kenya will also play a crucial role in complementing People and Plants' expertise in sustainable use issues with marketing, business skills and farmers organization and livelihood issues. If successful, it will set an important precedent for certification applied to woodcarving, and certification of wood coming from non-forest sources, with great environmental as well as social benefits.
Robert Höft, David Maingi, Tony Cunningham, Susanne Schmitt
Pakistan
The proceedings of the May 2001 Workshop on Ethnobotany Applied to Participatory Forest Management have now been published, under the editorship of Zabta Khan Shinwari and Ashiq Ahmad Khan. A workshop was also held, in May 2002, on International Curriculum Development in Applied Ethnobotany.
China
Prof Pei Shengji continues his excellent work on various aspects of ethnobotany in China, especially in the area of curriculum development, an important strand in the overall work of People and Plants. The First National Symposium on Ethnobotany and Enterprise Development is planned at Hungzhou in October, where themes will include sustainable use of plant resources, conservation, and education.

People and Plants Handbook: Issue 8
This latest edition will soon be out. Whereas previous issues have been thematic, the Handbook now functions as the newsletter of People and Plants, and is a source of information on applying ethnobotany to conservation and community development. It also highlights the range of materials produced.
Meanwhile, handbooks 6 and 7 are now available on this website, in pdf format, in English and Spanish, with html versions to follow soon.

New Working Papers
The following working papers are now available:
Working Paper 8. Ethnobotany of the Loita Maasai
Working Paper 9. Projek Etnobotani Kinabalu
Working Paper 10. An economic evaluation of medicinal tree cultivation: Prunus africana in Cameroon.
For details of these, and for html and pdf versions, go to the publications section of the website.

Join Us
In addition to subscribing to receive this newsletter, you can now become even more closely involved with the work of People and Plants, by joining. To do this, select the 'Join Us' button on the home page, and follow the instructions.

The newsletter, reflecting a selection of the many activities of People and Plants, is compiled by:
Martin Walters
People & Plants Editor and Web-manager