| European
Tropical Forest Research Network |
By Jelle Maas
In the Directory of information resources for non-timber forest products, compiled by David Russo, an array of information is made available on NTFPs in the literature and on the web. http://www.conservation.org/library/books/pdf/ntfpdir.pdf
The promotion and development of Non-Wood Forest Products (NWFP) is a priority area of the FAO Forest Products Division. At their homepage http://www.fao.org/forestry/FOP/FOPW/NWFP/nwfp-e.stm) information on their publications and activities can be retrieved as well as an electronic version of their newsletter (Non-Wood News). Very interesting are the database on institutes involved in NTFP matters, including research, their bibliographic database and the linkage with the Forest Resource Assessment 2000 (FRA) which, for the first time, includes NWFPs in its assessment.
At http://www.ntfp.org ProFound advisors in development present their definition of NTFPs, as well as a bulletin of the NTFP exchange programme Southeast Asia newsletter with interesting articles titled 'Voices from the Forest'.
The research programme of the Tropenbos Foundation has a significant NTFP component. Several research projects concentrated on NTFP in Cameroon, Guyana, Colombia, Côte d'Ivoire and Indonesia. This resulted in various publications available from Tropenbos offices in the countries and Tropenbos Head Office in Wageningen, the Netherlands. Orders can also be placed through the Internet: http://www.tropenbos.nl.
The International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) is an international organization created by 21 Member States of the United Nations, and has Headquarters in Beijing, China. INBAR is dedicated to improving the social, economic, and environmental benefits of bamboo and rattan (http://www.inbar.org.cn/).
Plant Resources of South East Asia (PROSEA) is approaching its final stage (http://www.bib.wau.nl/prosea/home.html), but the approach was found so useful that a new initiative has been developed 'Plant Resources of Tropical Africa' or PROTA (http://www.prota.org).
APFT, Avenir des Peuples des Forêts Tropicales, is a multi-disciplinary project sponsored by the European Community which aims to investigate and document the future of the peoples of the rainforest. Started in 1995 the project runs for five years, and involves over 30 EU and ACP researchers (senior and trainee) in three principal areas: the Caribbean, central Africa and the South western Pacific. http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/Rainforest/.
PROMAB, Programa Manejo de Bosques de la Amazonía Boliviana, is a research programme of Utrecht University in the Netherlands in close cooperation with Universidad Tecnica del Beni, Bolivia and Instituto para el Hombre, Agricultura y Ecologia, Bolivia and University of Freiburg, Germany in association with CIFOR. The focus is on NTFPs such as palm heart, Brazil nut and Rubber, which are the major products of the Riberalta region in Northern Bolivia. For more information: http://www.bio.uu.nl/promab/index.htm.
The NYBG Institute of Economic Botany (IEB) focuses a portion of the Garden's research enterprise on applied botanical questions of great human concern. The field of economic botany, with its allied discipline ethnobotany, involves the study of the relationship between plants and people. Economic botanists pursue research projects on useful plants, from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives. Information on their current projects and working countries is available at: http://www.nybg.org/bsci/ieb/.
For more information on Economic Botany the Society for Economic Botany (http://www.econbot.org/) is a useful source with many links to organisations, people and publications. Amongst the publications is the journal 'Economic Botany' published by the New York Botanical Gardens.
The Royal Botanical Gardens of Kew participate in several projects involving Economic Botany (http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/scihort/ecbot.html). One of these projects is the People and Plants Initiative, in close cooperation with UNESCO and WWF International. (http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/peopleplants/).
For a full overview of sites on economic botany or ethnobotany please refer to the Internet Directory for Botany at http://www.botany.net/IDB/.
The Institute for Culture and Ecology (IFCAE) in the US has a special site on NTFPs maintained by Eric T Jones (former editor of the NTFP-biocultural digest). This website contains conservation and development information on commercial, recreational, and subsistence extraction of NTFPs. Areas covered include cultural, ecological, economic, geographic, and political issues. http://www.ifcae.org/ntfp/index.shtml.
The Falls Brook Centre in Canada pays attention to the Certification of NTFPs. They play an active role in the discussions and meetings organised on this subject by FSC in Oaxaca, Mexico. http://www.web.net/~fbcja/programs/certmark/certmark.html.
The Centre of Minor Forest Products is geared toward promoting sustainable NTFP development with an emphasis on India. The website lists many publications on NTFPs and contains other useful databases. http://www.angelfire.com/ma/MinorForestProducts/ (IE only).
The Special Forest Products Website - Virginia Tech (USA) is a national clearing house focused primarily on NTFP products and markets. http://www.sfp.forprod.vt.edu/.
Medicinal NTFPs
At http://www.cieer.org/ the Centre for International Ethnomedicinal education and research has a special interest in medicinal plant products. Another organisation involved in medicinal plant research, but specifically in relation to trade and conservation is TRAFFIC (http://www.traffic.org).
The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) is dedicated to pioneering new conservation strategies by combining indigenous knowledge with Western science to understand, document and preserve the biological and cultural diversity of the Amazon. http://www.ethnobotany.org/ or http://www.amazonteam.org/.
The EthnoMedicinals Home Page: A page dedicated to the transfer of information on the use of herbs and other natural products in biochemistry, pharmacology, and traditional medicine. http://walden.mo.net/%7Etonytork/.
Rainforest Medical is a Dutch NGO with a focus on medicinal resources from tropical rain forests (http://www.xs4all.nl/~rainmed/).
PLANTLAX in Mexico has an emphasis on organic herb products under sustainable management. PLANTLAX aims to conserve our wild flora through its rational exploitation and its ecological recovery. It cultivates species with high national and international demand for the organic, herbal, pharmaceutical, nutritional and cosmetic market. http://www.geocities.com/florbach/red.htm.