The centre receives technical support from scientists and field support from NGOs. CIKIHR now seeks support from funding and research agencies so that it can initiate research projects for disseminating traditional knowledge and for developing herbal resources in situ.

For more information, please contact: Dr N.C. Shah, Coordinator CIKIHR, MS-78, Sector D, Aliganj, Lucknow - 226 024 UP, India.

Gujarat Grassroots Innovations Augmentation Network (GIAN)
SRISTI (Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions) prepared a proposal for setting up a fund for grassroots innovators and sent it to various state secretaries and financial institutions. This was done on the eve of the international conference on creativity and innovations at grassroots level, which was held in Ahmedabad 11-14 January 1997 (see IKDM 4(2)). The conference had been organized by the Indian Institute of Management (IIM-A), Ahmedabad (India), in collaboration with the Honey Bee Network and SRISTI. The proposal was discussed at the conference and received the support of representatives of the Indian states of Gujarat, Rajashtan and Punjab. As a result, the Gujarat Grassroots Innovations Augmentation Network (GIAN) was established on 1 March 1997.

The objectives of this new not-for-profit group are to scale up small innovations and to link the 'golden triangle of creativity': i.e., investment, innovation and enterprise. GIAN aims to organize and engage in any kind of programmes or activities that will identify, document, and augment the innovations of small farmers, artisans, pastoralists, etc. GIAN provides a model for rural development, employment generation and poverty alleviation which uses local knowledge blended, when necessary, with modern science and technology. The proposed budget for the initiative is IRS 10 million (US$ 284,000.00).

Since its inception, GIAN has conducted two workshops and selected several projects from the unique database which was developed by Honey Bee Network with major support from SRISTI and the IIM-A. The database contains information on more than 4000 innovations related to agriculture, water management, leather tanning, and textiles, for example. As many as possible of these projects will be commercialized and their scale will be enlarged.

One example is the project to scale up the services of an animal healer in Char village in the Junagadh district of Gujarat. The man, named Rehmatbhai, is a veterinary expert who treats animals for all kinds of diseases and disorders, normally prescribing 'desi' medicines. He works as a labourer and also takes the animals of his fellow villagers out to graze. He does not charge for his services. The aims of the project are:

• to document his knowledge systematically and to see that it is disseminated;
• to develop herbal kits based on Rehmatbhai's knowledge, which may be sold as a way to generate income for him;
• to study his practices further for the purpose of developing medicines;
• to conserve the biodiversity needed for the various treatments;
• to generate interest among the younger generation for the knowledge and skills of this expert.

Please visit GIAN's website at: http://csf.colorado.edu/sristi/gian.html

Nigerian Trust Fund launched for integrated rural development and traditional medicine
On 30 September 1997, the Fund for Integrated Rural Development and Traditional Medicine (FIRD-TM) was inaugurated in Abuja (Nigeria). The launch of this trust fund had been announced during an international workshop on medicinal plants held in Abuja and attended by five Nigerian ministers and several heads of Nigerian government agencies.

On 20 October 1997, the Healing Forest Conservancy (HFC), an independent non-profit organization founded by Shaman Pharmaceuticals, Inc., announced that it would donate US$40,000 to the fund. The Association of Indigenous Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and the Orange Drug Company of Nigeria then pledged additional monies to complement the HFC donation.

The purpose of FIRD-TM is to build technical skills in Nigeria that will help to make the country's bioresources a viable vehicle for sustainable development. Improved skills will generate pharmaceutical leads for new therapies to treat tropical diseases suffered in Nigeria, such as malaria, leishmaniasis, and trypanosomiasis. At the local level, technical skills acquired through benefit-sharing will help to standardize herbal remedies. This information will benefit traditional healers and the health of the communities they serve. Nigeria is a country rich in medicinal plant species; the trust fund will provide impetus for conserving the area's extraordinary biological diversity.

The Nigerian NGO BDCP is responsible for FIRD-TM. The trust fund also has an independent board composed of leaders of traditional healers' associations, senior government officials, representatives of village councils, and technical experts from scientific institutions. The Board of Management is chaired by His Royal Highness Eze E. Njemanze of Owerri, a highly respected traditional ruler.

HFC is interested in assessing the feasibility of trust funds for future benefit-sharing. Nigeria offers an ideal situation for testing this financial mechanism for distributing benefits among all stakeholders, as does the Convention on Biodiversity, explained anthropologist Katy Moran, director of HFC. "The predominance of traditional solidarity systems, such as tribal associations and professional guilds of healers, supplies a social structure to ensure community participation. Diverse culture groups in Nigeria will receive funds in a way that is consistent with their governing customs--through their villages and traditional healers' organizations. Town associations, village heads and professional guilds of healers are empowered to make decisions regarding projects in their localities."

Inter-regional Volunteer Programme for Artisan Support
IVPAS—the Inter-regional Volunteer Programme for Artisan Support—is a United Nations programme initiated in South Asia in 1992. It is based on the premise that crafts promote a style of life rooted in systems that are sustainable, environmentally friendly, self-sufficient and labour-intensive. The programme aims at forming linkages between existing national and sub-regional networks and communities of artisans, and at being a catalyst for an international volunteer movement to promote development that is ecologically sustainable and individually creative. By constructing alliances between artisan representatives and influential sympathizers at the international level, IVPAS hopes to see measures adopted that support its aims. IVPAS also encourages programmes and initiatives that lead to concrete projects in such areas as finance, marketing, design, technology, education, and media.

At present, IVPAS has a coordinating office in India that serves all four target regions: Asia, America, Africa and the Arab states. At the same time, however, IVPAS hopes to establish a network for real two-way communication, with the aid of e-mail, the Internet, and its own bi-monthly bulletin called IVPAS Interface. The coordinating office recently applied for an extension of funding until the end of 1998. Financial contributions and other forms of voluntary support are also sought from individuals as well as from organizations.

Please visit our website at http://www.unv.org/project/ivpas/ivpas.html

Change of address: Rainforest Action Network
Rainforest Action Network has a new address: 221 Pine Street, Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94104, USA.
Tel.: +1-415-398 4404.
Fax: +1-415-398 2732.

Rainforest Action Network (RAN) began in 1987 with a successful campaign to educate the public about the loss of rainforest in Central America as cattle ranching grew. Now, nine years later, RAN continues to pursue its mission to protect rainforests and the life they support. The network is able to mobilize 30,000 members and 150 grassroots Rainforest Action Groups who are interested in building alliances with human rights activists and environmental organizations worldwide.

The Brazil Program is a component of RAN specifically devoted to the Brazilian region of the Amazon and to Brazil's remaining Atlantic rainforest on the eastern coast of the country. Only eight per cent of this once extensive forest is now remaining. Even this, however, contains considerable ecological wealth. In addition, Brazil's forests are home to 330,000 indigenous people and to hundreds of other traditional communites, such as rubber tappers.

While embracing this extraordinary biological and cultural diversity, the RAN Brazil Program works mainly to empower Brazil's many traditional communities by helping them to secure their rights to territory and resources.

Recent activities of the Brazil Program include the finalizing of a document that summarizes and evaluates the situation of indigenous peoples in Brazil. This was handed over to President Bill Clinton of the USA just before his official visit to Brazil in October 1997. In November, Brazil Program director Beto Borges gave a presentation to the Congressional commission in Brazil that is investigating the presence of foreign logging companies in the Brazilian Amazon. The presentaion was requested for by the commission and was about the systems of logging concessions in the national forests of the United States and Canada.

For more information, please contact: Beto Borges, Brazil Program Director, RAN, 221 Pine Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94104-2715, USA.

1997 SARD Prize awarded
At the closing session of the 5^th International Conference on Trade in Organic Products, held in Christ Church College, Oxford (UK), Dr Friedrich Mumm von Mallinckrodt for the second time awarded the Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD) Prize, which he himself established in 1996. The selection committee is made up of 12 outstanding experts in ecology. The aim of the prize is to reward the successful application of indigenous knowledge. The 1997 SARD Prize was awarded to three initiatives: the Egyptian Bio-Dynamic Association (EBDA); the Asian Sustainable Agriculture Project of the International Institute for Rice Research (IIRR), and the Harmonie du Développement du Sahel Group (HDS) in Mali. The SARD Prize totals US$10,000.00 a year.

Dr Mumm von Mallinckrodt initiated the prize for individuals, communities and groups in developing countries who apply an agro-ecological approach to agriculture and food production that meets the following criteria:

Nominations for the 1998 SARD Prize should contain the following information:

• history and description of the activities and programmes, indicating in quantitative terms how the four criteria are met;
• relevant publications and/or written materials;
• personal data and full addresses of the nominee(s).

Deadline for submission is 30 June 1998.

For more information, please contact:
SARD-Mallinckrodt
Wolfgang Klausnerstraße 11
D-83339 Chieming, Germany
Fax: +49-8664-989 202
E-mail: sard.mallinckrodt@t-online.de