17. To facilitate the discussions during the meeting, studies had been commissioned by FAO in advance to cover supply and demand situation and trends and needs of the rattan sector in the major producing countries in Asia and Africa, as well as global status reports on the ongoing work on rattan development and conservation. Drafts of these studies had been made available to the participants before the meeting and were presented by their authors at the respective sessions (see Annex 3 for the list of authors and papers presented).
18. The paper General introduction to rattan - The biological background to exploitation and the history of rattan research, presented by Mr Dransfield, provided an overview of the present status of taxonomic knowledge on rattans. Mr Dransfield stressed the need for taxonomic rigour which had to be applied on a regional basis. He further updated the meeting on the progress made in rattan cultivation and gave a summary of how research on rattan biology had evolved from 1980 up to the present.
19. Through his paper Challenges and constraints in rattan processing and utilization, Mr Liese informed the meeting on major rattan characteristics and technology of rattan processing. Mr Liese identified processing constraints and listed current gaps and future priority needs for research in rattan utilization.
20. In presenting the paper INBAR's rattan programme, Mr Lou described the high socio-economic importance of rattan in Asia and its share in the regional trade of forest products. Mr Lou further updated the participants on INBAR's programmes and publications on rattan.
21. The paper Resilience and evolution in a managed NTFP system: Evidence from the rattan gardens of Kalimantan, presented by Mr Belcher, gave an overview of how CIFOR's work programme relates to NWFP in general and to rattan in particular. Through the presentation of a case study on the management of rattan gardens in Kalimantan, where though interest in rattan-growing was declining due to the current low prices for cane, Mr Belcher emphasized the need to take a holistic approach in rural development programmes and to consider a full range of forest and/or agriculture development options rather than promoting programmes that would focus and single out rattan specifically.
22. The session ended with the presentation of two voluntary papers, Rattan genetic resources conservation and use - IPGRI's perspective and strategy, presented by Mr Hong and Presentation of ITTO by Mr Ma. These two papers gave information on the respective work programmes and projects of the two agencies in general and in relation to rattan, in particular.
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