COMMUNICATIONS - NETWORKS


JFM research network
Joint Forest Management (JFM) is an approach to forest management that is being tried in India and several other countries. In JFM, government forestry departments and local communities jointly manage state forest lands, sharing both responsibilities and benefits. JFM requires multidisciplinary skills and research inputs.
In 1992, a network was set up to develop research partnerships in different states and at the national level in India. Through these partnerships, researchers and representatives of state forestry departments, NGOs, and academic institutes began documenting and sharing their experiences in a series of meetings and workshops. At the national level, a JFM network began to function when a group of institutions and NGOs that had received grants from the Ford Foundation established contact with forestry officers in the states where they were working. As the JFM programme expanded, the network also expanded to include many more organizations and individuals. A National Support Group (NSG) has been set up within the Society for the Promotion of Wastelands Development (SPWD). This group has emerged as the hub of the research network.
Network members get together to share experiences, discuss methodology and training needs, and set a research agenda. By 1993, the network had grown considerably. It was decided to divide it into three sub- networks, with an organization appointed to coordinate each one. These are:

Apart from the research, many field NGOs have become involved in the programme's implementation. They act as laboratories where innovative approaches to JFM can be tried out. NGOs serve as an interface between the community and the forestry department. In almost all the states where a JFM approach has been adopted, NGOs are involved in disseminating information, organizing community documentation and diagnostic studies, resolving conflicts, etc.
Research findings as well as the field experiences of NGOs are discussed in workshops and seminars at different levels. Decision-makers at district, state and/or national level also participate. Regular training programmes are also organized for network members. Publications are another mechanism for sharing information: case studies, analytical reports, manuals, etc.
The JFM research network is still growing and evolving. It is encouraging to see that people from so many different disciplines are coming together to search for viable alternatives for the twin objectives of empowering the local community and reversing the forest degradation process. As the network does not have any predefined boundaries, it is hoped that it will continue to grow and evolve in future. It has and will continue to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and for healthy debate between all those involved in the complex task of JFM.
Contact: Programme Staff, Society for Promotion of Wastelands Development, SBKK Building, 1 Copernicus Marg, New Delhi 110 001, India. Fax: +91-11-382633.

People and Plants Initiative
The People and Plants Initiative was started in July 1992 by WWF, UNESCO and the Royal Botanic Gardens (Kew). The aim is to promote the sustainable and equitable use of plant resources by offering support to ethnobotanists from developing countries.
The initiative stems from awareness that people in rural communities often have detailed and profound knowledge of the properties and ecology of the locally occurring plants on which they rely for food, medicine, fuel, building materials and other products. However, much of this knowledge is being lost with the transformation of local ecosystems and local cultures. Over-harvesting of non-cultivated plants is increasingly common, caused by loss of habitat, increase in local use and the growing demands of trade. Long-term conservation of plant resources and the knowledge associated with them is needed for the benefit of local people, and because of their potential use to local communities in other places.
The diversity of traditional plant-resource management practices runs through a spectrum from 'cultivation' all the way to the gathering of 'wild' plants. All of these practices are included in the People and Plants approach.
Ethnobotanists can work together with local people to study and record the uses of plant resources, to identify cases of over-harvesting of non-cultivated plants, to find sustainable harvesting methods, and to investigate alternatives such as cultivation.
The People and Plants Initiative is building support for ethnobotanists in developing countries who work with local people to conserve both plant resources and traditional ecological knowledge. Key individuals organize participatory workshops, undertake discussion and advisory visits to field projects, and provide literature on ethnobotany, traditional ecological knowledge and sustainable plant-resource use. It is hoped that a network of ethnobotanists working on these issues in different countries and regions can be established for the purposes of exchanging information, sharing experience and collaborating on field projects.
During the first three years of the initiative, a large amount of information was collected. At the same time the number of requests has grown. One way of disseminating information and responding to these requests has been the People and Plants Handbook.
Contact: Biodiversity Unit, Conservation Policy Division, WWF International, World Conservation Centre, Avenue du Mont-Blanc, 1196 Gland, Switzerland. Fax: +41-22-3648219.
or:
Division of Ecological Sciences, Man and the Biosphere Programme, UNESCO, 7 Place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 SP, France. Fax: +33-1-40659897
or:
The Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3AB, UK. Fax: +44-81-3325197.

Nitrogen-Fixing Tree Association
NFTA is a programme of the Winrock International Institute. It is an international network of community groups, development workers, tree breeders, researchers and farmers. What brings them together is an interest in the use of nitrogen-fixing trees to improve the soil, protect the environment, and enhance the well-being of farm families and other land users. Through research (germplasm, species screening trials), extension (training, community forestry grants) and communications (research reports, species fact sheets, international workshops, agroforestry information service) NFTA provides the skills and resources needed to introduce, improve and manage nitrogen-fixing trees successfully.
NFTA network participants are farmers, community leaders, rural-development volunteers, staff of non- profit organizations, students and faculty members in colleges and universities, employees of national research institutions and government ministries, and staff of international research and development agencies. They receive NFTA's regular publications and can purchase special publications at discount rates.
For more information, please contact:
Nitrogen-Fixing Tree Association (NFTA) Network, c/o Winrock International, Rt. 3 Box 376, Morrilton, AR 72110, USA. Tel: +1-501-727 5435. Fax: +1-501-727 5417.

People, Land Management and Environmental Change
This collaborative project of the United Nations University (Tokyo), which was initiated in a small way in 1992, has now become an international network. It includes scientists, their students, and members of community-based organizations and NGOs, all of whom fall into five 'clusters' distributed across the tropics and sub-tropics. Altogether, the theme of conserving biological diversity on the lands of small farmers in the tropics and sub-tropics currently brings together 83 scientists, 62 of them based in developing-country institutions. Their collective aim within PLEC is:

PLEC's five clusters are in West Africa (Ghana and Guinea), East Africa (Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania), Montane Mainland South East Asia (Yunnan, China and Thailand), Papua New Guinea and Amazonia (Brazil and Peru). A sixth cluster is beginning to take shape in the Caribbean. The project is coordinated by the Australian National University (Canberra, Australia). Professor H. Brookfield is its scientific coordinator, in collaboration with a co-coordinator in Tokyo, and two principal scientific advisors (Dr C. Padoch, New York Botanical Garden, and Professor Michael Stocking, University of East Anglia). All the clusters have leaders or joint leaders within the developing countries, who are based both in universities and in national institutions. All are multidisciplinary, and each cluster has developed and initiated its own programme of work within the general guidelines of the project. South-South cooperation is a strong feature, in association with North-South arrangements to provide advice and participation and, in some cases, formal linkages. PLEC sees itself as an 'integrated core project' managed in such a way as to allow decentralized decision-making, while bringing together ideas and examples of how to integrate ecological sustainability with economic development. Since 1994, in association with UNEP, the project has developed its recent work in accordance with ideas presented in the GEF Strategy for Biological Diversity.
Progressively, PLEC has shifted from a research orientation to a more operational orientation. In West Africa, South East Asia and Amazonia, preparations have been made for farmers and scientists to conduct collaborative investigations of sustainable farming systems which both use and conserve biodiversity. These include experiments with farmers' own practices. The experiments should lead to partnerships between villagers, scientists and officials in order to promote sustainable practices. A central concept of PLEC is 'agrodiversity', meaning the many ways in which farmers exploit local ecological diversity for production. These include not only their choice of crops but also their management of land, water and biota as a whole. Another central argument is that farmers' adaptations and the knowledge on which they are based could be successful, if societal conditions permit and assist. People manage the land and its biological diversity; moreover they suffer the consequences of wrong decisions. A principal objective of PLEC is to give farmers' knowledge and practices an equal place with the findings of external science in the search for sustainability with conservation.
Operating until now on small funding, PLEC has depended heavily on the remarkable enthusiasm of its participants. This was abundantly demonstrated at the one general meeting they have been able to hold, at Chiang Mai (Thailand) in 1994. Regional meetings have been held in some clusters, raising the visibility of PLEC work, and supporting its associations' other initiatives.
The project publishes a twice-yearly periodical containing substantive articles by its members. This newsletter is presently called PLEC News and Views. Five issues have appeared. The most recent (September 1995) issue and the next one (March 1996) contain papers relating very directly to the study and use of farmers' own knowledge. Project members have also contributed to a special issue of Global Environmental Change: Human and Policy Dimensions 5(5), 1995, and to publications of the United Nations University. PLEC News and Views is published from the small coordinating office in Canberra, from which further information can be obtained.
Contact: Harold Brookfield, PLEC Project, Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia. Fax: +61-6-2494896/4688. E-mail: hbrook@coombs.anu.edu.au


Back to: top of the page | Contents IK Monitor 3(3) | IK Homepage
Suggestions to: ikdm@nuffic.nl
(c) copyright Nuffic-CIRAN and contributors 1995.