• Home
• Science Strategy
• Science Teams
• Projects
  • Plant Information for Northeast Brazil
• People
• Publications
• Acronyms

Plant Information for Northeast Brazil

Workshop exploring the types of information service to be delivered

This project (1999-2004) formed part of our collaborative Plantas do Nordeste (PNE) programme. NE Brazil is semi-arid, of great botanical diversity and includes municipalities with the worst developmental indicators recorded in Brazil.

Our goal was to promote sustainable use and conservation of native plants by collating knowledge about their use and management and delivering demand-led information services. Our priority audience was development agencies supporting rural smallholder families in the semi-arid region ('drought polygon'). Information products were designed primarily to meet demands identified by a sister project: Promoting Sustainable Plant Use in NE Brazil.

Outputs:

1)      Communication infrastructure:

a)      An information centre (Centro Nordestino de Informação sobre Plantas - CNIP) at the Federal University of Pernambuco including a documentation centre containing methodological and plant information resources.

b)      A network of botanists, chemists and foresters contributing to the knowledge base ensuring the reliability and appropriateness of information gathered.

c)      A network bringing together, often for the first time, knowledge-providers and those with information needs.

2)      Knowledge infrastructure:

a)      An authoritative checklist of the region’s 8,674 Angiosperm species (9,384 taxa) containing 13,893 scientific names (with synonyms) reviewed by 119 systematists from 10 countries. A hard-copy was published in early 2006.

b)      The checklist, first published electronically in 2000, includes common names, geographic range and use and is at the core of all information services: resolving the nomenclatural confusions frequently found in development literature and providing a backbone to which detailed plant management and use information are linked.

c)      Nine 'thematic' databases for identified management priorities (forage, medicinal, fruit and wood utilisation) share a common extensible structure and contain details of plant use and management.

d)      A library of 1,150 digital images of plants and plant use (linked to checklist).

3)      Demand-led information services including:

a)      A website (www.cnip.org.br) describes the project and contacts, brings together the various information resources, supports the networks (e.g. discussion fora) and points to further information resources.

b)      Detailed management profiles for species (27) of highest priority to communities.

c)      ‘Popular’ plant monographs designed for use by rural communities: medicinal (7), forage (12) and native fruits (6).

d)      Identification guides (2) for use by rural communities.

e)      Five educational games and charts promoting wider knowledge of the region’s plants distributed among 800 schools and rural markets.

f)        A management system enabling development agencies to share experiences in agroecology.

4)      Capacity building:

a)      Network of more than 50 projects and institutions sharing information and methodologies.

b)      Numerous data standards and methodologies developed and widely used elsewhere in Brazil.

c)      Guidelines for producing materials (e.g. identification guides) for use by readers with limited literacy skills.

d)      Support for information management by regional herbaria.

e)      20 staff, students and collaborators gained technical, developmental and project management skills through courses and internships.

CNIP is the primary source of information for the region and is widely used elsewhere in Brazil.  Kew’s scientists help maintain the checklist, repatriate data and participate in research projects deriving new knowledge (e.g. wood utilisation).

Kew Home | Science Directory | Copyright & Privacy