Miombo woodlands are the world's largest continuous dry deciduous forests. They
extend across Angola, DR Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The objective of Miombo Forum is to empower miombo peoples to manage their woodlands
responsibly through provision of information, expertise and finance.
Miombo Forum is an initiative of the UK's Forest Management Foundation and will
be launched at a conference on "Alternative trade and ecolabelling in miombo
woodlands" in Kabompo, Zambia in June 2000. Uchi Mukula Trust, a local NGO,
will host the event. The remote location of Kabompo was chosen for the launch
because of milestone achievements by local Alternative Trading Organisations:
In 1990 North Western Bee Products launched the world's first certified
organic bee products;
In 1998 Muzama Crafts achieved Forest Stewardship Council certification
for 1 million hectares of community managed woodlands. This was the first
community managed forest to be certified in Africa and the largest area of
certified community managed forest world wide.
Attendance will be by invitation only because of limited infrastructure but the
conference proceedings will appear on our website. The conference will consider
how the Miombo Forum should develop.
The conference sponsors are the Ford Foundation and HIVOS. SNV are providing logistical
support and IUCN assisted with fundraising.
For more information contact:
Ben Masumba Robertson
Conference Coordinator, Miombo Forum
Email: miombo@bigfoot.com
Or check out the Forum's website at www.miombo.com
NEW MAILING LIST ON AFRICAN BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY AND INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE
A new mailing list 'africadiv' has been launched by the Indigenous Knowledge
and Biodiversity Working Group at the Environment Liaison Centre International
(elci) in collaboration with Nuffic-CIRAN, Centre for International Research and
Advisory Networks. The Africa Diversity mailing list is devoted specifically to
the sustainable use of biological diversity and indigenous knowledge in Africa.
The loss of traditional knowledge about resource use is one of the central problems
of our times because the loss of knowledge ultimately contributes to the loss
of biological diversity including the plants for food and plants used to make
medicines. The purpose of this discussion list is to promote the advancement of
knowledge about biodiversity and indigenous knowledge in Africa - invite the participation
of natural and social scientists, governmental and non-governmental organizations,
and any other entity with an interest in biodiversity and indigenous knowledge
issues; share research materials, event announcements, funding, job and training
opportunities, relevant newsletters, and news in general regarding sustainable
use and conservation of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge. The moderators
want this to be an opportunity for frank exchange of differing views and experiences,
in a way that challenges, stimulates and enlightens. They expect this exchange
will help stakeholders to further enhance the sustainable use and conservation
of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge for sustainable development.
If you are interested and want to join this mailing list you can send a message
to lyris@lyris.nuffic.nl and write
subscribe africadiv yourfirstname yourlastname in the body of the message, leaving
the subject blan.
Source: NTFP-Biocultural-Digest Vol. 04, No. 3. (now NWFP-Digest-L). To subscribe
please send an email to: mailserv@mailserv.fao.org
with the message: subscribe NWFP-Digest-L
INTERNATIONAL NETWORK ON ETHNOFORESTRY
Introduction
A new network was set up in 1999 to promote the Equity of Knowledge between indigenous
communities and formal forestry scientists around the world. The International
Network on Ethnoforestry (INEF) is a peer group of concerned foresters, scientists,
international agencies and non-governmental organizations working for the documentation
and dissemination of indigenous knowledge on forest management and its integration
with formal forestry, in various cultures and indigenous peoples in different
parts of the globe. INEF is based at the Indian Institute of Forest Management
(IIFM), Bhopal (India), and receives additional support from the Asia Forest Network
and RECOFTC. The network is coordinated by Deep N. Pandey assisted by 30 faculty
members at IIFM.
INEF currently has around 300 members in 100 countries. Members understand ethnoforestry
within the wider context of traditional ecological knowledge and believe that
the philosophy of sustainability is basic to many indigenous knowledge systems.
By helping to integrate context-specific indigenous knowledge on forestry with
formal forestry science, INEF aims to promote the equity of knowledge and contribute
to improved livelihoods for indigenous people as well as sustainable forest management
by local communities.
Current INEF activities include the compilation of an annotated bibliography on
the global status of ethnoforestry, a research project on ethnoforestry in India,
and collaborative training for stakeholders on ethnoforestry. The most important
activity is the INEF mailing list which has brought together for the first time
various stakeholders who are helping in the retrieval, transmission and field
application of indigenous knowledge on forests around the world.
Networking technology
INEF initiatives is using the simple technology of an e-group mailing list with
profound impact. This project aims to achieve Equity of Knowledge between indigenous
communities and formal forestry science. The project is unique in that it addresses
the concern for equity of knowledge at the worldwide scale and is targeted at
an audience that has the potential to alter the course of development interventions
in the field of natural resource management. For the first time, a gathering of
individuals and organisations is attempting to convince those who matter in the
policy implementation sector that knowledge is the key to empowerment of poor
and marginalised local communities. The project is also unique in that it has
established arrangements for a free flow of information from international bodies
to the village level in order to apply knowledge that has previously been restricted
either to academic circles or communities. Pooling together the knowledge of communities
and foresters, and integrating it for field implementation, can yield rich dividends
for communities, effectively helping to address the problems of deforestation
and threatened livelihoods. INEF has shown that both knowledge systems are compatible
and that simple computer-based mailing lists can have a profound impact on any
developmental project that is aiming to address the integration of knowledge systems.
Interaction of INEF with users
Every-day users of INEF are foresters, policy makers, scientists, students, village
forest protection and management committees, NGOs, anthropologists, sociologists,
wildlife experts and international agencies. Typically interaction occurs through
a simple e-mail list for sharing information and research findings. People needing
information also have recourse to the archives of the mailing list and can use
the URL links to access useful websites.
Achievements and results
The most important achievement of the INEF so far has been the wide realisation
among the various stakeholders that it is easy to retrieve, transmit, integrate
and apply indigenous knowledge on forests. It has fulfilled the need of the international
community involved with indigenous knowledge and also of the village communities
among whom these scientists have been working. The INEF initiative has been instrumental
in catalysing the development of similar initiatives in other countries (e.g.
Nepal) in the form of foresters' associations. The entire body of research of
its 270 core members is readily available to any interested user. The success
of the network can be assessed by the large number of hits (over 10,000) received
by our various sites, the active flow of e-mails between members, the scale of
pooled knowledge submitted for inclusion in the databank (in the form of 300 URL
sites), and the over 500 documents contributed for the compilation of Global Status
of Ethnoforestry.
Lessons learned
Some of the lessons we have learned include:
Equity of knowledge is possible. It is also essential to stop the exploitation
of the rural poor who are the holders of local knowledge.
Small resources and simple technology may have a profound impact on the
development sector.
Sharing of knowledge by willing participants can be speedy, fruitful and
productive through internet and e-mail.
Challenges we face
Our major constraint is the non-availability of the internet to a very large audience
in developing countries, the very people who also tend to have a rich body of
indigenous knowledge on forests and natural resources. This problem has been partially
overcome in certain cases where members receive e-mail information and then share
it with the people of the villages in which they work. In addition, INEF has started
to collect a large body of literature on ethnoforestry through the e-mail list
and this will soon be published in several local languages. A CD ROM is also being
developed for users who have a PC but do not have a reliable e-mail connection.
A second constraint is the high level of illiteracy in the third world. A third
constraint is the dominant thinking of decision-makers such as foresters, policy
makers and scientist, the majority of whom do not really believe that village
communities are equally knowledgeable.
Our future
INEF has planned the following activities, in part dependent on the availability
of resources:
Publication of the proposed journal Ethnoforestry;
Possibly working on a proposed intercontinental collaborative project on
"Integration of Indigenous Knowledge on Forests and Formal Forestry"
and "Equity of Knowledge";
Organising the proposed "First International Congress on Ethnoforestry";
Establishing a regular website for INEF.
Overall, it is hoped to promote further transfer of the pooled information to
practising foresters and communities and to help them implement it in the field.
This may be possible through a series of training courses and workshops.
For further information, contact:
Deep Narayan Pandey
Indian Forest Service
INEF-International Network on Ethnoforestry.
Indian Institute of Forest Management
PO Box. no. 357, Nehru Nagar,
Bhopal, India-462003
Tel:+91 755775716, Fax:+91755772878
INEF http://www.egroups.com/groups/inef
IIFM http://www.iifm.org/
ARCHIVE OF TROPICAL FOREST INFORMATION - ATROFI-UK
ATROFI is a meta-database of historical tropical and sub-tropical forest inventory
datasets held in the UK that has been developed under a DFID Forest Research Programme
project (R7277). The database contains basic information of the location, extent
and protocols used in each inventory along with contact details of the data holders
and owners. The intention is to make historical (1950s to 1990s) forest datasets
available to researchers and others interested in tropical forests. The following
data types are included:
Volume functions for natural forest and plantation species
Repeated permanent sample plot data for natural forest and plantations
