AnnouncementA limited number of copies of the following FAO publications are available for free distribution to individuals, universities, libraries, research centres, projects and others working on NWFPs in developing countries.
E = available in English
To receive copies of these publications, please write to Tina Etherington, Forest Products Division, Forestry Department, FAO, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100 Rome, Italy. Fax: +39-652255618; E-mail: [email protected] |
A bamboo home page is available through E-mail on computer. The page will include the following topics: the American Bamboo Society and chapters; About bamboo; Bamboo species list; Where to find bamboo; Bamboo agroforestry; International bamboo resources. The E-mail list is maintained on an automated mail list with two components: one receives E-mail messages addressed to [email protected] and copies the messages to all addresses on the mail list. This is the address to be used if you wish to share news items, information, and so on. The other component receives messages addressed to [email protected], reads text lines that contain valid commands and acts on them. Commands can be sent to subscribe, cancel subscriptions, receive the current mail list, receive a list of files available on E-mail and receive selected files.
For more information, please contact
Jim Ryan, Computer Services Coordinator, UC Santa Cruz Housing Services, Santa Cruz, CA 95064.Fax: +1-408-4593422.A project of the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry will develop a database on the socio-economic aspects of bamboo and rattan in Indonesia for use by Indonesian researchers and policy-makers, and to contribute such information to an international database created for the purpose. (Source: INBAR Newsletter, October 1995.)
A study on the production, processing and marketing of bamboo was started in 1994 by the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), INBAR and the Research Institute of Subtropical Forestry of the Chinese Academy of Forestry (RISF-CAF). The study examines both the importance of bamboo in the economy of the region, where more than 70 000 people are directly employed in the sector, and also the impacts of the transition to market economy. (Source: CIFOR News, July 1995.)
The Australian Bamboo Network has been created to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experience on bamboo worldwide and to promote research. The network will promote the sharing of plant material and information within the network and with botanic gardens; the consolidation of knowledge about the bamboo species found in Australia and imports of other desirable species; and the promotion and diversification of the uses of bamboo in the human and natural environment.
For more information, please contact
Australian Bamboo Network, PO Box 174, Fremantle, WA 6160, Australia.Both newspapers and television have reported on the findings of a group of researchers from the University of Leicester, United Kingdom, on the property of the seeds of Moringa oleifera to purify water from bacteria and viruses. In Malawi, muddy water mixed with pounded Moringa seeds resulted in purified water after one hour just as if it had been filtered with a chemical product, such as the common water purifier aluminium phosphate. This property is considered by the researchers to have great potential for many developing countries where the lack of drinkable water is a major health problem. Moringa oleifera (common names: drumstick tree, paraíso francés, moringue aptère) has its origin in India but it is now widely grown as a multipurpose tree in Asia, Latin America and Africa, where it grows in semi-arid environments. It is commonly used for food and as a spice (leaves, fruits, seeds, flower and oil from seeds), fodder (the shoot, leaves, fruit and seed), medicine (roots, bark and leaves), for soil conservation and improvement of soil fertility, and in windbreaks.
Mauritia flexuosa (buriti or moriche palm) is a tropical palm found in a wide area of South America limited by the Orinoco river to the north, the Andean foothills to the west, and throughout the Brazilian northeast and in the south as far as Minas Gerais and Mato Grosso do Sul.
The palm is mainly used for its fruits, from which a very popular drink is extracted, or to make sweets. Like other starch-bearing palms of Southeast Asia, starch can be extracted from the pith in its stem. The starch is an essential component of the diet of the Warao Indians living in isolated tribal areas in the Orinoco Delta in Venezuela and also has a medicinal use as a cure against diarrhoea. The moriche palm has a special place in the traditional and religious life of the Warao, and starch preparation is linked to ritual aspects (for example, when elderly men go into the forest to select and fell the trees, how they extract the starch, and how the first cake made is offered to the god Canobo). Details on the extraction of starch from the moriche palm, however, are not easily available. Although starch can be extracted and eaten throughout the year, people usually make it during the dry season, from April to July, when starch levels are high, and then store it for emergency use. The quantity of starch that can be extracted varies considerably, according to the season. Reported productions range from 2 to 50 kg of wet starch, equivalent to 1 to 30 kg of dry starch. Other factors influencing the starch content are rainfall and groundwater levels, and the biological phase of the trees (it is widely held that fruiting trees have less starch than non-fruiting trees). Normally only the top of the stem is processed because the starch content is much higher in the upper part of a stem than in the lower part. In this respect, Mauritia flexuosa appears quite different from Metroxylon sagu in which there is practically no variation throughout the length of the trunk. To extract the starch, the pith is chopped with a tool usually made from the same felled tree. The pith is then kneaded and washed by hand. This technology for starch extraction requires a great deal of hard work, its efficiency is very low and, consequently, the production of starch is not a commercially profitable operation.
The resource base of moriche palm in northeastern Venezuela, in the Orinoco Delta and in parts of the states of Anzoátegui, Monigas and Guáricois is extremely large and currently underutilized. However, in order to explore ways of increasing the income of local people by exploiting the moriche palm, basic information will be necessary, particularly as to the level at which it could be sustainably harvested. (Source: Travel report by J. Cecil, Agricultural Industries Officer, FAO.)
Within the framework of the Canada-Saskatchewan Partnership Agreement on Forestry potential market opportunities for non-timber products found in the Saskatchewan Forest Management License Agreement Area (FMLA) were studied. Funding for the study was supplied by the Canadian Forest Service through a contract with Weyerhaeuser Canada, Ltd. Extensive evaluation of published data on consumer buying trends was undertaken and direct buyer-seller interviews throughout the United States, Canada and other countries were conducted. Overall, approximately 40 special forest products available in FMLA were analysed. In an effort to explore added economic development and job creation opportunities in the area, the study results will be used to select specific products to be included in the current timber inventories conducted by Weyerhaeuser, and incorporated into their Geographic Information System (GIS) to develop some predictive capability. Another phase of the project is to address the issue of sustainability of the use of special products. A group consisting of several harvesters/gatherers, a few wholesalers and retailers, some Weyerhaeuser staff and people from several departments of the Province of Saskatchewan (who, as owners, are responsible for the management of the forest land), have started to discuss environmental concerns. The intent is to develop guidelines to ensure that all harvesting is sustainable and to identify, where possible, plants where harvesting should be restricted. The last phase is to identify areas where harvesting could take place. Areas accessed by Weyerhaeuser's timber harvesting activities would be made available to permitted harvesters, with the aim of creating employment opportunities for northern Saskatchewan residents, many of whom are native.
For more information, please contact
John Doornbos,The Integrated Research on Farm Forestry Systems in China project of the Chinese Academy of Forestry, with support from the International Development Resource Centre (IDRC), was completed in 1994. An important component of the project was to help farmers produce and market NWFPs such as bamboo shoots, mushrooms and Chinese gallnut. The project provided training and equipment to farmers for mushroom production, drying, storage and transport. Now over 50 tonnes of dried mushrooms are produced yearly, some of which are exported to Japan. Technology for the preservation of bamboo shoots was introduced in Anji County, China's leading bamboo-producing area in Zhejiang Province. In 1992, a single village earned a profit of about Can$28 000 from the sale of its preserved bamboo shoots. (Source: IDRC Reports, April 1995.)
Along the line of developing guidelines for certification schemes for wood products in the Amazon region, a process for certification of non-timber forest products has started in Brazil. A workshop was organized in Rio Branco, in the state of Acre, to discuss certification schemes for natural rubber and Brazil nuts in extractive reserves. Participants from 21 institutions representing the economic, environmental, social, academic and environmental sector attended the workshop. The consultation process will try to involve as many as 600 people/institutions.
For more information, please contact
Mr Tasso Rezende de Azevedo, IMAFLORA.E-mail: [email protected]About 20 farmers from Jambi and North Sumatra participated in a visit to dammar mata kucing (Shorea javanica) agroforestry sites in the Krui area of West Lampung, Sumatra, Indonesia. The visit was organized by the FAO Asia-Pacific Agroforestry Network (APAN). The unique agroforestry system is composed of dammar trees mixed with various tree species such as durian (Durio zibethinus), dukuh (Lansium domesticum), rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum), manggis (Garcinia mangostana) and petai (Parkia speciosa). After the visit, farmers expressed their interest in using dammar mata kucing agroforestry and brought back seedlings received from local people. (Source: APAN News, March 1995.)
In Kerala, the collection of Minor Forest Products (MFPs) is organized through 35 tribal cooperative societies, and marketing is done through the Kerala State Federation of Schedule Cast and Schedule Tribes Development Cooperatives. MFPs collected by the tribal societies are sold at public auctions. The Federation takes 5 percent of the sale value as overhead charges and gives interest-free advances to the societies to meet collection charges. (Source: MFP News No. 3, 1995.)
Rainsticks are musical percussion instruments manufactured from the dead stems of shrubby and arborescent cacti. The two main species involved in the manufacturing of rainsticks are Echinopsis chiloensis and Eulychnia acida, both Chilean endemics. Sealed cylinders of the wood are filled with various materials, such as volcanic sand or pebbles, that run up and down when the stick is tilted. The trade in rainsticks made from cacti has increased in recent years, giving rise to concern over the impact on the wild populations. Demand from producers seems to be satisfied by the availability of the dead plant material. The work involved in the cutting and cleaning of the living branches is not justified by the present market price of rainsticks. Spines for use as "baffles" within the rainsticks are harvested from living plants, or collected from the ground.
Chile is the main exporter of rainsticks, primarily to the United States, Germany and other European countries. By the end of August 1995, some 99 581 rainsticks had been imported by the United States, while Germany imported 4 497 pieces of E. acida and 6 550 pieces of E. chiloensis. In France, in 1994, imports from Chile amounted to some 25 908 metres and in Italy imports by August 1995 amounted to around 20 925 metres. Prices of rainsticks range from a few US dollars to about US$100. Large-scale trade appears to have started about ten years ago and is thought to have reached its peak. Echinopsis chiloensis and Eulychnia acida are classified in the CITES Cactaceae checklist as "non-threatened"; however, it has been recommended that appropriate collecting methods be studied. The international trade in rainsticks was discussed at the sixth meeting of the CITES Plant Committee in June 1995 and, although it was recognized that trade is not a cause for concern for conservation, the Committee called for improved reporting. (Source: TRAFFIC Bulletin, August 1995.)
New fruits are gaining market importance in Brazil: açai, a protein-rich purple berry that contains more iron than spinach; cupuaçu, acerola, camu-camu and conde are some of the most promising. The Institute for Mankind, Agriculture and Ecology in the State of Rondônia has identified 48 fruits that occur naturally in the Amazon and that are believed to have potential for a strong market in Brazil and abroad. Researchers at the Institute estimate that a small farm of approximately 3.25 ha (8 acres), growing cupuaçu and other fruits, would produce an income of US$4 200 a year for a family. The Institute has also designed a machine to extract the pulp from the odd-shaped fruits. The main constraints faced by the fruit-based agribusiness in the Amazon are the irregular supply of fruits and the lack of infrastructure. A small Brazilian company, Congelado, is planning to invest more than US$1 000 000 on equipment to sterilize and vacuum-pack the fruit pulp for longer transportation and storage. (Source: New York Times, 26 September 1995.)
The cashew apple, which is left behind after the extraction of the cashew nut, is rich in vitamin C, five to ten times richer than an orange. However, it has a high astringency because of polyphenols, and it bruises easily and spoils quickly from bacterial action. In Viet Nam, where cashews have been widely cultivated since early 1980 for the production of nuts, a research team in Ho Chi Minh City, and the Quebec company Lassonde Technologie of Rougement, with support by IDRC, are testing different techniques to eliminate the astringency of the fruit. Results are encouraging. If this previous waste by-product becomes a highly marketable product, there will be significant social and economic benefits for cashew-producing farmers. An already existing factory belonging to DONA Fruit Canning could be easily converted to handle the local cashew apples before they spoil. Transportation and processing of cashew apples could create several hundred jobs and generate sizeable revenues for the company. The Vietnamese are also carrying out work on the socio-economic impacts of such development, and an environmental impact assessment of the project is to be undertaken. The possibility of drying the cashew apple pulp left from pressing for use as livestock feed is also being investigated. (Source: IDRC Reports, April 1995.)
A joint research project by the Department of Cultural Anthropology and the Herbarium of Utrecht University, Tropenbos Foundation, in the Netherlands and the Amerindian Research Unit of the University of Guyana was started on the use and marketing possibilities for non-timber forest products in Guyana, South America. The research will take place in the northwestern part of the country, a largely forested area inhabited by Carib, Warao and Arawak Indians. Recent developments have brought gold- mining activities, a French palm-heart processing factory and Asiatic logging companies to the area. The research will investigate whether sustainable harvesting and marketing of NTFPs can offer an alternative income to local people instead of logging, gold mining, and the destructive extraction of palm hearts and birds. It will include an inventory of all plants in the areas producing NTFPs, the quantification of the importance of NTFPs in Amerindian household economy, market surveys, comparison of different extraction technologies, and the labour and market relations within Amerindian societies.
For more information, please contact
Tinde van Andel or Marileen Reinders, Herbarium, Utrecht University, PO Box 80102, 3508 TC Utrecht, the Netherlands.Fax: +31-30-518061; or Tropenbos Office, 12 E Granett Street, Campbellville, Georgetown, Guyana.Fax: +592-2-62846.Appropriate Technology International (ATI) has won a grant from the Small-Scale Enterprise Education and Promotion (SEEP) Network to plan the next stage of its work with harvesters and processors of rattan in the Philippines. Under this grant ATI will develop a programme for the expansion of small-scale rattan enterprises, placing particular emphasis on methods to increase cost recovery by NGOs providing assistance, in order to make more funds available for reinvestment in the programme. (Source: ATI Bulletin, July 1995.)
The Central African Regional Programme for the Environment (CARPE) is an initiative of the Africa bureau of the USDA Forest Service, funded under the Development Fund for Africa. This programme, which has a budget of US$14 000 000, will have a duration of five years. It will address the global environmental issues of biodiversity conservation and global climate change, through conservation efforts in tropical lowland forests of the Congo basin covering the following countries: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Zaire and most of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. CARPE's purpose is to identify and begin to establish the conditions and practices required for the conservation and sustainable use of the natural resources of the Congo basin in a way that addresses local, national, regional and international concerns. One component of CARPE is the role of NWFPs in the forestry sector in the countries of the Congo basin.
For more information, please contact
Mark Buccovich, Africa Branch Chief, International Forestry Operations, USDA Forest Service, PO Box. 96090, Washington, DC 20090-6090, USA.Fax: +1-202-273-4749.The National Research Centre for Agroforestry (NRCAF) at Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, was established in 1988 to strengthen research in agroforestry in India. In the last seven years the centre has focused its research efforts on agroforestry systems (including combinations of crop + trees, crop + fruit-trees, crop + trees + fruit-trees, both irrigated and rainfed; silvipastoral systems; and alley cropping/hedgerow cropping), energy plantation, farm forestry and tree improvement. NRCAF has linkages with national institutions located in the different agro-ecological zones of India and with international agencies such as BAIF, IDRC Canada, USAID, ODA and ICRAF.
For more information, please contact
Dr A.S. Gill, Director, NRCRAF.Fax: +91-517-44033.Community Development Association (CDA) is a non-governmental development association that was founded in 1986 by a group of development workers with experience in working with the Unitarian Services Committee of Canada in Bangladesh. CDA operates a participatory integrated development programme in two districts of northern Bangladesh. The main components of CDA work are institution building, education, training, health, sanitation and nutrition, credit, gender relations and development, sustainable land use, village and farm forestry, and policy advocacy.
For more information, please contact
Community Development Association, UPA SHAHAR, Block 1, Dinajpur, Bangladesh.The International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG) programme was developed as a result of the Convention on Biological Diversity, signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The project "Bioactive agents from dryland plants of Latin America", one of IBCG's collaborative efforts, was awarded in 1993 to the University of Arizona. It involves researchers from the University of Arizona, the Pontificia Universidad de Chile in Santiago, the Instituto de Recursos Biológicos in Buenos Aires, the Universidad Nacional de Patagonia in Comodoro Rivadavia, Argentina, the Universidad Nacional de México, the Medical and Agricultural Division of the American Cyanamid Company, Purdue University and the GWL Hansen's Diseases Center of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
During the project's first year, 500 plant species were collected and classified, while bioassays and isolation of active natural products are under way for some specimens and completed for others. Data collected are being entered in a database. Database searches for bibliography on arid land plants are being undertaken. Another important part of the project is training and infrastructure support for host country institutions and training of both Latin American and North American graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. In the areas of biodiversity, the project has established cooperative relationships among academic, governmental and non-governmental agencies. A background paper covering treaties, intellectual property rights and conservation strategies has been prepared to be used in workshops planned for Latin America in early 1996, in order to ensure that biodiversity and cultural issues are considered in the process of prospecting for plant resources.
For more information, please contact
B. Timmerman or B. Hutchinson, Office of Arid Lands Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.The demand for ginseng root, used in Southeast Asia for centuries as a medicinal plant, has risen abruptly in recent years in the United States as a result of an increased demand in Asia and a growing appetite for the herb in the country. The high prices paid in 1995 for wild ginseng root (about US$1 000 a kg) in the United States have caused an enormous pressure on the plants in the wild. Overharvesting is threatening the existence of wild ginseng populations in some areas in Virginia. The rise in price has alerted wild plant poachers and urged landowners to take serious protection measures to keep poachers away from what they refer to as "green gold". (Source: International Herald Tribune, 12 December 1995.)
Arthropods (insects, centipedes and spiders) are commonly used by traditional healers in Africa and in Chinese medicine to treat serious disorders such as asthma, strokes, typhus and bone fractures. Western medicine ridiculed remedies from arthropods until the late 1980s, when researchers working on nerve disorders found that snake venom might have therapeutic uses: this focused attention on nature's other poisoners. However, most western drug firms seeking natural remedies have ignored arthropods in favour of herbs. Now the drugs-from-bugs industry is growing rapidly in Europe, Japan and the United States. Firms in the United States import arthropods from all over the world. An example of the interest in this industry is the US$1 000 000 agreement between the major pharmaceutical company Merck and the National Institute of Biodiversity in Costa Rica (see Non-Wood News 2) for insect extracts to be tested in fighting infections, AIDS, cancer and inflammations. (Source: Newsweek, 27 November 1995.)
Top biotechnology companies are engaged in a fierce battle against environmental groups to tap and control the undiscovered plant-based pharmaceutical wealth available in tropical forests. At stake is the ownership of the US$147 billion - the estimated value of undiscovered plant-based pharmaceuticals in the tropical forests alone. "Biopirates" is the term coined by environmental groups to refer to biotechnology companies researching pharmaceuticals from biological resources without recognizing and compensating the contribution of the people in the countries. According to a report on biopiracy compiled by the Ottawa-based Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI), there are few places on earth where rural people are not facing biopirates who aim to extract their knowledge and resources. The University of Wisconsin has received two US patents for a protein extracted from the berry of Pentadiplandra brazzeana and now has exclusive worldwide rights to it. Every year, sales of drugs derived from the periwinkle plant from Madagascar amount to over US$160 million. The people of Madagascar who have preserved the plants for centuries do not get any benefit. Drugs from Rauvolfia serpentina, an Indian plant, sell for more than US$260 million every year. In fact, according to a 1994 report by the United Nations Development Programme, the annual value of medicinal plants from the southern hemisphere used by drug companies in the rich countries is around US$32 billion. (Source: The Sunday Times of India, 29 October 1995.)
A US$350 000 research project on the use of plants and marine life for drug manufacturing is under way in Fiji. Support for the project is provided by the Biodiversity Support Programme, a consortium of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the Nature Conservancy and the World Resources Institute (WRI), with funding by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This is one of a number of projects in Asia and the Pacific to test the hypothesis that communities getting returns for the use of their biodiversity will be more likely to conserve it. One area of major concern in the context of the development of prospecting for active components from plants and animals is the protection of the cultural and natural heritage of the resource country. The Government of Fiji is drafting a new environmental law to take this into account. Concern has also been expressed by the Pacific Concern Resource Centre which has called for the "freezing" of a contract between the University of the South Pacific and Smith Kline Beecham, the United States pharmaceutical giant, and has stressed the need for a legal framework to regulate bioprospecting activities and contracts and resolve conflicts that may arise between communities sharing the same plant species. (Source: Pacific Islands Forest and Trees Newsletter, 4/95.)