Knowledge Exchange
Scientific research can play a key role in helping local communities adapt to change, both by securing their roles in 
Murilo Serra leading local farmers in a field study, Brazil.the stewardship of local resources and by addressing key problems related to their well-being and livelihoods. It can also provide new information, instruments, methods, and approaches that reinforce or complement existing forms of resource governance, knowledge or management. However, scientific research on bio-cultural diversity is often not designed, executed, or communicated to local groups in ways that are useful to them.
The Knowledge Exchange Program works to ensure that research process and products arising from research are respectful of and relevant to local people. To do so we encourage the exchange of tools, knowledge and 
Farmers in Brazil learn to identify, map and measure valuable species. expertise between local groups and between researchers and local groups. We strive to produce innovative materials in accessible formats which are directly useful to local resource managers. PPI researchers endeavor to make sure that knowledge is not extracted from, but retained, and, in some cases, revitalized and adapted, in local areas where it is most needed.
In regions undergoing rapid land use change, it is increasingly important for local people to appraise what traditions and knowledge are valuable to retain, which may need adaptation, and what new information or capacities may be needed. To strengthen communities in the face of change, PPI seeks to complement scientific research with local knowledge. This approach is used to enhance understanding of and communication between communities and outside stakeholders.
Local to global: scaling up
An inherent assumption in all PPI activities is that the complex nature of social and environmental problems are 
Final presentation of data, Cortejuba, Brazil.best addressed through carefully designed, small-scale interventions that strengthen local institutions, knowledge, and practices. However, there is also an important responsibility to extend and scale-up what is learned through to have a wider impact on the relationship between science and local groups.
PPI's Knowledge Exchange activities seek to raise awareness and change practices of scientists, funders, NGOs and others, by providing methods, lessons, and assistance with the design and execution of effective and ethical research, including the exchange of research results in ways that are useful to local communities.
Barriers to knowledge exchange
Systemic problems in institutional structure and reward systems inhibit the sharing of knowledge between researchers and local people. Some of the barriers to sharing knowledge include:
- Institutional disincentives to equitable knowledge sharing between researchers and local people;
- Reward systems evaluate researchers' progress based on numbers of papers published, not on field impact or accountability to local partners;
- Scientists are trained to communicate with other scientists, not with the public; and,
- Education and wider communication of results is often ignored or not valued by the scientific community.
Towards the end of 2007, PPI and its partner in this activity, CIFOR, began application of a survey of researchers and academics to better understand the institutional obstacles and disincentives to knowledge exchange and returning results within research institutions and academia. In addition, PPI has collected lessons learned from a range of practitioners and researchers in Asia, Africa and Latin America who are challenging conventional processes and are undertaking research with and for local communities.
Knowledge exchange activities
Innovative dissemination of research to local people
People and Plants International disseminates practical scientific information, tools, and experiences building upon 
Extracting amapá milk, Ponto de Pedras, Marajó, Brazil. many years of collaboration with local groups. Each of these efforts integrates scientific and indigenous knowledge and traditional systems of resource management. These projects seek to refine our understanding of knowledge exchange methods. Products thus far include: cultural mapping, community directed video, rural radio, illustrated booklets, and music. The geographic areas in which these activities are taking place include: the Amazon Basin (Brazil, Peru, and Ecuador); Central America (Mexico); Central Africa (Cameroon); and Southern Africa (South Africa and Namibia).
Extracting barbatimão, Ponto de Pedras, Marajó, Brazil.
PPI Knowledge Exchange Manuals
Some of the manuals produced by PPI seek to render accessible scientific research results to groups who normally do not have access to the specialized journals or to the language used by scientists to communicate the results of their findings. Several of our manuals have been translated into many languages and are used by students, technicians and policy-makers to better understand many of the complex issues surrounding the question of biocultural diversity and plant resource management. Other manuals have been used by communities to disseminate, and in some cases validate or control, the use of their knowledge. A number of hands-on technical manuals have also been developed to help local groups better manage resources, or negotiate with commercial and government representatives interested in local resources and lands. Please see the PPI Knowledge Exchange Manuals page for more information.
Mushrooms and Fungi
In partnership with the Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB) in China, PPI is addressing a significant knowledge gap: the economic values and sustainable harvest of mushrooms and fungi. This is an important issue in vast areas of ectomycorrhizal woodlands and forests, including miombo woodlands in south-central Africa, Shorea robusta (sal) forests in India, and the oak and coniferous forests of montane Europe, North America and China. PPI and KIB will produce a methods manual in Chinese and English that will reflect knowledge shared from different places across the world. By producing this manual, PPI hopes to address a key incentive - the values of fungi - for forest conservation. For more information on this project, see PPI's Conservation & Managed Habitats webpage. 
Ipê Roxo bark being extracted by a collector in a sawmill, Icoraci, Belém, Brazil.Survey of dissemination practices
The survey addresses researcher and institutional practices in dissemination of research results to discern points of tension and leverage points for constructive change. Partners involved in the survey include: The Southeast Asian Non-Timber Forest Product Network in the Philippines, the Center of Tropical Investigations in Mexico (CITRO), Mulheres da Mata (Women of the Forest) project in Brazil, and CIFOR's regional offices in Africa (Cameroon, Zambia, Burkina Faso).
The Knowledge Exchange Survey was applied in eight countries from three regions: Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Data collection will continue through May 2008; analysis and dissemination will take place during the remainder of 2008.
New Manual on Knowledge Exchange
In spite of substantial financial investments in research, relatively little attention is paid by many research organizations to communicating results to broad audiences, particularly local stakeholders. By failing to communicate research results beyond elite audiences, research organizations may miss significant opportunities to increase their impact and contribute to solving concrete social and environmental problems.
One impediment is that there is often a lack of understanding about "how-to" do such activities. To fill this gap in 
Students draw species maps, Cortejuba, Brazil.understanding, PPI, along with additional partners, are compiling a manual which will highlight innovative practices of disseminating research results. An overview will highlight the relative success and failure of traditional scientific outputs to catalyze impact, and the potential to expand the range of research outputs as one means to augment impact. Thematic chapters include: oral traditions (i.e. From Camp Fires to Cell Phones), theatre, puppetry and games, written communication, (manuals, brochures, comics); radio; and video (DVDs) and the web. The voices and experiences of numerous invited experts, practitioners and local people from Asia, Africa and Latin America will be reflected in the form of case studies. Broader lessons will be gleaned from the diverse cases, for the purpose of fostering replication. The manual will be published by Earthscan as part of the PPI series, in 2009.
Policy briefs and journal articles
Policy briefs, relating to knowledge exchange associated with non-timber forest products, are in preparation. These briefs, and other articles and materials, will be presented at international fora such as the Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties in Bonn, Germany in May, 2008, and the International Congress for Ethnobiology in Cusco, Peru, in June 2008.
PPI has also been invited to contribute to a special issue of Biotropica on the challenge of ensuring knowledge exchange among such diverse scales as local to global. PPI’s contribution will be an article entitled, Getting Science Out of the Academic Closet: Steps towards more equitable communication of research .
Partners
PPI works closely with individuals and organizations in communities to jointly implement activities. Below is a list of some of those valued partners, by country.
Brazil
Community residents along the Capim River, including community leader, Joao Fernando Moreira Brito have assisted PPI in the conception, design and production of manuals for non-literate rural people. They have jointly researched issues of interest and followed through with long-term collaboration to ensure that precautionary data reaches forest frontiers. Gloria Gaia has been instrumental in conducting workshops throughout the Amazon region in Brazil. She was awarded the Journal of Ecology and Society's Inaugural Award for bridging science and society in 2006. Recently, People and Plants International is working with the National Council of Rubber Tappers in Brazil in the printing and promoting dissemination of People and Plants International materials to extractive reserves throughout the Amazon basin.
In March, 2008, the Ministry of the Environment and the Federal Land Titlement Agency in Brazil have offered to support the printing of 20,000 copies each of PPI’s Portuguese books, Fruit Trees and Useful Plants in the Lives of Amazonians and Recipes without Words: medicinal plants of Amazonia. FAO, Rome, is also collaborating with PPI and CIFOR to print and distribute 5,000 copies of an English version of the Forest Fruits and Useful plants book.
China
PPI has a long history of working in China, through links with the Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB) established in the early 1990’s, when Professor Pei Sheng-ji partnered with the WWF/UNESCO/Kew “People and Plants Initiative”. It was Professor Pei who enabled four of the books in the “People and Plants Conservation series” to be translated from English into Chinese. This legacy of training materials continues to be invaluable today, as PPI has been involved in training courses in Yunnan and Shaanxi provinces of China.