Conservation and Managed Habitats
Through our Conservation and Managed Habitats program, PPI collaborates with local experts, cooperatives and communities to develop management protocols for plant resources of subsistence or commercial importance. Protocols of this program are designed around local knowledge and ecological sciences and are calibrated to satisfy conservation interests and local livelihood needs.Below is information on PPI's Conservation and Managed Habitats activities in Mexico, China, India, Indonesia and Southern Africa.
Mexico
PPI works in two regions in Mexico: the Selva Maya area of the Yucatan Peninsula and the Guerrero region of southwestern;)
Doña Olga making a box, Mexico. Photo: S. PurataMexico. The Selva Maya (the Mayan Forest) is a biologically and culturally rich forest located in an area comprised of southeastern Mexico and northern Belize and Guatemala; it is one of the largest tracts of rainforest in the Americas second only to the Amazon. In the Selva Maya, PPI's Conservation and Managed Habitats program is working with local communities to identify income generation activities derived from the forest and thereby create economic alternatives to deforestation. In Guerrero, PPI is working with local communities to define and develop standards for the sustainable harvesting of a regionally important nontimber forest product, wild maguey (Agave spp), used in creating fermented beverages such as pulque and mescal.
Diversified Forest Management as a Strategy for Conservation in the Selva Maya
PPI is working in the Ejido Veinte de Noviembre, a small community of Mayan descent, located in the Mexican state of Campeche in the southern Yucatan Peninsula. The ejido is situated in an area known as the Great Calakmul region, a place of great biological importance due to its high plant and animal diversity. Along with other communities, it forms a forest corridor that connects the reserves of Sian Ka'an and Calakmul and is thus considered of the utmost importance for conservation. It is a small indigenous community with few demographic pressures inhabiting a highly diverse forest. However, before the ejido took control of forest extraction, the forests in the area suffered intense, highly selective, uncontrolled an destructive extraction which resulted in the forest being depleted of mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) and cedar (Cedrela odorata), two of the most highly sought after wood species in the region.
Project Goal
The overarching goal of the project is to increase the contribution of forest-based income-generating activities to local people's livelihoods in order to maintain and increase their interest in conserving the forest and its biodiversity for the long term.
Project Activities
After assessing the interests of the local people and the market potential, PPI identified two activities:
Meliponiculture - stingless beekeeping
PPI reintroduced meliponiculture which uses native stingless bees, mainly Melipona beecheii which have been
Taking the brood and honey from the tree trunk, Mexico. Photo: S. Puratadomesticated by the Maya for hundreds of years. Even though there are still a number of producers in the Yucatan Peninsula, this activity has declined dramatically over the past 50 years because of the introduction of the more productive European bees, as well as the unwillingness of the younger generations to become involved with this form of traditional honey production which has lead to the loss of management techniques. Thus, this project has both ecological and cultural value while contributing to the maintenance of biological diversity. Moreover, the honey from the stingless bees can be transformed into products with a high added value (such as creams, salves, etc.) as well as used or marketed as products with a medicinal value (pollen, propoleum, eye drops, etc.) Moving the brood to the box, Mexico. Photo: S. Purata Harvesting the honey after transferring the brood, Mexico. Photo: S. Purata |
Wooden handicrafts using local forest species
PPI is working with the community to create wooden handicrafts with a Mayan identity that will appeal to tourists. The woodworkers are taught different woodworking techniques such as turning, carving and branding. PPI conducted a market survey to identify what kinds of products would have the largest appeal to a tourist market. A catalog of the products will also be produced. To learn more about the handicrafts available for purchase, or about the program, please contact Silvia Purata at puratas@mac.com
 Wooden bowls and boxes, Mexico. Photos: S. Purata  |
Participatory Monitoring of Maguey Papalote Agave Cupreata in Guerrero, Mexico
In collaboration with two NGOs, Grupe de Estudios Ambientales "GEA" and Sansekan, PPI is supporting the community
Maguey poster, Mexico. management of an important nontimber resource: wild maguey (Agave spp) widely used in the production of fermented beverages such as pulque and mezcal, both of which have great economic and cultural importance in the region of La Montana de Guerrero, a very poor region of Mexico.PPI, in collaboration with Catarina Illsley from GEA, carried out a three-day participatory workshop in Chilapa, Guerrero, with the objective of designing and implementing a standard methodology for participatory monitoring of wild populations of maguey paplote for sustainable mezcal production.
During the workshop, we discussed and then gathered the basic information need to define a sustainable harvest (e.g. density, growth and yield data) and we designed a standard methodology to be applied by each community. The results of the workshop are being compiled into a simple manual to disseminate to other villages that wish to improve the current pattern of exploitation.
PPI Collaborators in Mexico
PPI works closely with individuals and organizations in Mexico to implement its projects there. RAISES is a network of NGOs in Mexico dedicated to the sustainable management of land and resources by local communities. RAISES has been very active in PPI's work in the Central Valley of Oaxaca.
China
PPI has been working in China through links with the Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB) since the early 1990's when Professor Pei Sheng-ji partnered with the WWF/UNESCO/Kew "People and Plants Initiative."Mushrooms and Fungi in China
In China, for small-scale producers, mushroom harvests have several advantages compared to perishable crops or bulky farm or forest products. Several mushrooms and fungi in western China, such as matsutake (song rong) and Cordyceps sinensis (dongchong xiacao) have a very high value per unit volume compared to crops. Many fungi can also be dried and consequently have a long shelf life compared to perishable crops. These characteristics make mushrooms and fungi particularly attractive as a source of income to households in remote mountainous areas with limited transport. Wild collection of edible and medicinal fungi therefore provides a significant portion of household income for many rural households. In Yunnan, matsutake mushrooms are an extremely valuable commodity exported to Japan. In the Wanglang area (Pingwu country, Sichuan), collectors earn 2000 RMB per year from sales of caterpillar fungus (Cordyceps sinensis) compared with annual yearly household incomes of 500-600 RMB. Although most recent research has focused on these two species, hundreds more species are commercially harvested, yet have received less attention. In southwest China, for example, 207 species of wild fungi in 64 genera are commercially traded.
Over the past decade, commercial medicinal plant harvest in the mountainous, forested western China has increased due to two important policy changes. These two policies are the 1998 logging ban and the "Grain for Green" program introduced in 2000, to discourage farming on steep slopes. As a result of this legislation, gathering of fungi is on the rise as households compensate for the loss of income from farming and timber logging, which previously were the source of a major part of household finances. In addition, the rapid increase in tourism has also increased value-added sales of mushrooms and fungi in local restaurants.Methods manual for ecologically sustainable harvest of wild mushrooms and fungi
Yields of wild mushrooms and fungi have greatly decreased, however, due to the ecological effects of timber logging (particularly clear-felling) on populations of mushroom and fungi. By addressing these issues and sharing knowledge from different places across the world in a methods manual, PPI hopes to address a key incentive - the value of fungi - for forest conservation.
PPI and KIB are planning a "write-shop" to translate sustainable harvest guidelines into a form useful to local people and foresters. This meeting will be attended by national and international experts to produce a practical Chinese language manual for ecologically sustainable harvest of wild mushrooms and fungi.
India
In India, PPI works closely with the Keystone Foundation which is based in the Nilgiri Hills, part of the Western Ghats in
Isangoma digging merwilla bulbs, S. Africa. Photo: A.B. CunninghamIndia. PPI provides support to Keystone through information exchange, mentoring and field courses. The first field course on ecological monitoring was held in 2005 in Tamil Nadu, South India. Download a summary of the course PDF English.The first field course was followed up by three case studies: one in South Africa on the medicinal plant Merwillea plumbea and two case studies in India, on Canarium strictum and Cycas circinalis. These two case studies looked at the harvest, trade and ecology of these two endemic species in the Western Ghats.
See PPI's Health & Habitat webpage for more information on the Merwillea plumbea study and to download a copy of the study results. An outcome of the Canarium strictum study was to produce three posters illustrating the conservation status, quality, characteristics and sustainability and a guide to harvest impacts and resin quality of this culturally and economically important species in India. See PPI's Posters & Art webpage to see the posters.
Anita Varghese leading the field course, India. Photo: A. B. Cunningham
Indonesia
In Indonesia, PPI collaborates with Yayasan Pecinta Budaya Bebali (YPBB), an Indonesian NGO and the Threads of Life
Herlina Wonga and Theresia Ngeni, Indonesia. Photo: A.B. CunninghamFoundation. YPBB's mission in Bali, Indonesia is to create a sustainable livelihood and income for Bali's rural poor, especially women weavers, who rely on the sustainable production of natural dye plants for their traditional dye techniques.Across Indonesia, YPBB, with training and technical support from PPI:
- conducts participatory research on traditional dye techniques;
- teaches dyeing to weavers who have lost their natural dye traditions;
- develops management plans for sustainable natural production;
- assists in the development of weavers and dye-plant farmers' cooperatives, including viable business development;
- facilitates inter-island workshops, meetings and the exchange of knowledge and materials towards the development of a broad-based grassroots mutually empowering weavers' community.
Southern Africa
Namibia is the driest country in sub-equatorial Africa and its economy relies heavily on its natural resources (farming, mining, fishing and tourism). Namibia has started to build on opportunities present by high value plant species from dry forests and agroforestry systems.
Marula fruit market, S. Africa. Photo: R. Wynberg
- cosmetic seed oils from marula (Sclerocarya birrea);
- two sour plums (Ximenia americana and X. caffra);
- Kalahari Melon seeds (Citrullus lanatus, Cucurbitaceae);
- sliced and dried tubers from the mediciinal plant species, Devil's Claw (Harpagophytum procumbens and H. zeyheri); and,
- dried stems of Hoodia gordon.
PPI is working to develop local capacity for effective, practical management systems for high value plant species in 
Harvesting hoodia, S. Africa. Photo: R. Wynbergcommunal conservancies in Namibia that ensure the sustainable utilization of these plant resources for the benefit of local communities. Specifically, PPI is:
- developing user-friendly materials and event books to assist with training and management of species; and,
- developing field-based training courses that lead to the development of management plans for plant products crucial to local livelihoods and with the potential to add value, sustainably, on a commercial scale.