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Promoting Sustainable Plant Use in Northeast Brazil

Promoting the use of known safe medicinal plants

This project (1999-2004) formed part of our collaborative Plantas do Nordeste (PNE) programme. Northeastern Brazil is semi-arid, of great botanical diversity and includes municipalities with the worst developmental indicators recorded in Brazil. The goal was to promote sustainable use of native plants among smallholders and their families in the semi-arid interior (the ‘drought polygon’) by:

a)      understanding the information needs of rural communities;

b)      validating and promoting the exchange of local knowledge between communities;

c)      promoting use of information services delivered by our sister project: Plant Information for Northeast Brazil and communication between rural development agencies;

d)      designing and testing development interventions in chosen communities.

Outputs included:

1)      A network involving more than 45 government and non-government agencies and local development associations (farmer unions, cooperatives, church and community groups).  Initially we worked with partners in 7 municipalities in Paraiba, Pernambuco and Bahia. The network grew slowly as methodologies were tested but came to span 7 of the 9 states in Northeast Brazil. Each partner contributed in different ways and had varying degrees of integration with the Plant Information for Northeast Brazil project and with one another.

2)      Defining the demand: Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) was used to analyse:

a)      the broad needs of 120 communities for information about plant management

b)      the detailed requirements of 50 communities for information about: forage management, medicinal plants and native fruits.

3)      Information services promoting sustainable plant use:

a)      weekly radio programmes run by community members to promote safe use of herbal remedies  (38 communities in 8 municipalities)

b)      published popular leaflets outlining i) use of 7 medicinal plants ii) use of 12 forage plants and iii) 6 native fruits distributed among all participating communities. Each included a guide to plant identification

c)      3-monthly newsletter distributed among all communities

d)      promotional materials and a presence at markets, fairs and 'environmental awareness' events

4)      Development interventions:

a)      techniques for management of forage and medicinal plant resources within participating communities

b)      30 technical visits to communities by scientists and development officers to demonstrate practical methodologies

c)      25 exchange visits between representatives of communities to share succesful experiences

d)      8 training courses in resource management practices for representatives of communities involved in the communication network.

5)      Measuring the impact of delivering biodiversity information. The project developed methods and indicators to measure the socio-economic impact of biodiversity on those communities in which we worked.

6)      Capacity building:

a)      methods developed for managing biodiversity knowledge for sustainable livelihoods including the identification of needs, procedures for producing dissemination materials for less educated audiences

b)      19 collaborators gained technical, developmental and project management skills through courses and exchange visits.

As the network expanded, increasing numbers of communities used or adapted techniques and interventions for their own use.  This uptake of methods and ideas has continued so that there now exist significant numbers of development programmes using techniques and knowledge derived from our work.

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