INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON MEDICINAL AND AROMATIC PLANTS, to be held at LOTUS PANG SUAN KAEW HOTEL, CHIANG MAI, THAILAND during January 15-18, 2007.

The international workshop on Medicinal and Aromatic plants will be held in Chiang Mai, Thailand from 15th to 18th January 2007. For details please click on the link above.

Dear all,
My name is Desmond McCarthy (Project Assistant) from the Medicinal Plants Conservation Project (MPCP-Egypt) and we have just launched our new website detailing all our work both locally in South Sinai and Nationally. I would be grateful if you could view our website and give me some feedback. If you have a website in keeping with our themes and goals then please contact me so that we may establish a link together.

Our URL is http://www.mpcpegypt.com

Thankyou
Des

The International Symposium on Chamomile Research, Development and Production, will be held in Presov, Slovak Republic, from June 07 to 10, 2006.

Herbotechnik

A Project Concept to integrate with the WADI Programme for Tribal Livelihoods
A Concept Note


BAIF Development Research Foundation is a Non-Government Organisation working for rural development across seven states of India. Registered as a Public Charitable Trust in 1967, BAIF is today managed by over 1000 dedicated professionals, implementing a multi-disciplinary programme in Livestock Development, Water resource Development, Tree Based Farming Systems, Community Health and Empowerment of Village Communities, especially women, spread over 10,000 villages.

THE BAIF MISSION

BAIF’s Mission is to create opportunities of gainful self employment for the rural families especially disadvantaged sections, ensuring sustainable livelihood, enriched environment, improved quality of life and good human values. This is being achieved through development research, effective use of local resources, extension of appropriate technologies and upgradation of skills and capabilities with community participation. BAIF is a non-political, secular and professionally managed organisation.

The Maharashtra Programme

BAIF, through its Associate Organisation MITTRA, has taken up the Wadi programme for tribal livelihood promotion. This is done through a holistic approach incorporating horticulture, agriculture development, management of natural resources and introducing off-farm activities to add value to the farm produce. The programme also has interventions for improving the quality of living through improved health and creating development opportunities for women. The programme is implemented in over 325 tribal villages from Nashik, Thane and Ahmednagar districts of Maharashtra State. In these areas programmes reach out to about 20,000 families. The programme has now also been initiated in other areas such as Nandurbar and parts of Vidarbha.

The above programmes are implemented in exclusive tribal areas where the families do not have year-round livelihood opportunities, and are forced to migrate for survival. The Wadi programme has made possible for them to have a secure and stable livelihood.

HERBOTECHNIK: A UNIQUE STRATEGY

A new programme direction is now launched by BAIF in selected areas, to understand, conserve, cultivate and utilise medicinal herbs. The Herbotechnik approach has the following cornerstones:

 Help sustain the traditional knowledge systems on medicinal herbs, in a living form
 Promote availability of medicinal herbs in all their diversity
 Integrate use of herbal medicines in the community health programme
 Commercialisation with benefits to the local communities who have contributed to the knowledge.

Proposed Programme

It is planned to integrate the Herbotechnik strategy with the ongoing Wadi Programme. In order to have a people based programme for production and forward linkages, BAIF / MITTRA have started to work with the traditional herbal healers and other tribal farmers in order to take up production / procurement, cleaning, value addition and marketing of medicinal herbs and semi processed products. As a step in this direction, the following is planned to be undertaken:

 integrate cultivation of medicinal and aromatic plants within the ongoing “Wadi” activities (agri-horti-forestry)
 promote block plantations of identified trees having medicinal value
 establish herbal gardens and backyard plantations for local use
 introduce appropriate quality standards in the collection, handling and storage of new herbs
 introduce field level quality and purity testing methods
 establish forward linkages for sale of pure and quality herbal materials

The above field level components will be backed by the necessary work on:

 standardization and transfer of practices for propagation and cultivation
 establishment of “mother” plantations of medicinal plants / herbs from authentic sources
 developing protocols for assurance of purity and quality
 standardization and transfer of techniques / methodology for field level testing

Support Request

Requested to support the above programme for which a detailed three year project proposal will be worked out.



Dr.Anil Saraf.
Additional Programme Director
BAIF Development Research Foundation
Dr. Manibhai Desai Nagar, N.H. No. 4.
WARJE, PUNE- 411 029. INDIA.
Tel.: 91 20 25231661. Fax: 91 20 25231662.
E-mail: baif@vsnl.com OR ansaraf@rediffmail.com

Moulay Ismail University, Faculty of Sciences and Techniques Errachidia, UFR Physiology of Nutrition and Endocrinian Pharmacology and Laboratory of Protection and Preservation of Natural Resources are jointly organizing the International Congress on Medicinal Plants which will take place in Errachidia, Morocco from 16th to 19th March 2005.

The objectives of the congress are as under:-

- Developing collaboration between scientific researchers in the field of medicinal plants and natural products
- Updating informaton and techniques used in the study of pharmacological activities of medicinal plants
- Preservation of traditional knowledge in phytotherapy
- Debate problems and solutions related to different aspects of the phytotherapy
- Contributing to development of Moroccan Industry dealing with natural products

Important dates:-

Deadline for abstracts submission: 10th January 2005
Deadline for full length papers submission: 10th February 2005

For more information on the congress, please visit the website http://www.membres.lycos.fr/cnpm2005/