Collaboration Beyond PALMS - WP 8

Researchers and institutions participating in the FP7-PALMS project are involved in several other related activities that are not funded by the project. These associated activities may, however, provide important background and in some cases additional input to understanding the problems that FP7-PALMS deals with. For WP8 these collaborations have involved the following ones:

PALMS OF BOLIVIA, KNOWLEDGE, CONSERVATION AND DISTRIBUTION

In collaboration with Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza the following contributions were presented in scientific meetings:

Moraes R., M. 2009a. Estado de conocimiento de las palmeras nativas de Bolivia. Pp. 2. En: Memorias del Simposio 30 años del Instituto de Ecología, Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, La Paz.

Moraes R., M. 2009b. Influencias fitogeográficas en la riqueza y distribución de palmeras de Bolivia. Pp. 11. En: Libro de Resúmenes, I Congreso Boliviano de Botánica, Centro de Biodiversidad y Genética, Universidad Mayor de San Simón, Cochabamba.

Moraes R., M. 2009c. Conservación ex situ de palmeras exóticas vs. nativas en Bolivia. Pp. 49. En: Libro de Resúmenes, I Congreso Boliviano de Botánica, Centro de Biodiversidad y Genética, Universidad Mayor de San Simón, Cochabamba.

Riveros, I., M. J. Velarde & M. Moraes R. 2012. Bases biológicas y productivas de frutos de la palmera asaí (Euterpe precatoria) para pulpa en bosques amazónicos de Bolivia. Pp. 72. En: Moraes R., M., F. Montoya & M. Cornejo (eds.) Memorias del congreso. II Congreso Boliviano de Botánica y III Congreso Latinoamericano de Etnobiología, Herbario Nacional de Bolivia, Instituto de Ecología, Carrera de Biología, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, La Paz.

PALM DISTRIBUTION PATTERNS OF BOLIVIA

In collaboration with the science department of the Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza (FAN) in Santa Cruz, a data base on palm published information served as a framework for evaluating distribution patterns of Bolivian palms. The following publications were produced:

Moraes R., M., B. Rios & D. Larrea-Alcazar. 2012. Distribución potencial para palmeras de Bolivia: patrones de riqueza, endemismo y fitogeografía. Pp. 5. In: Ríos-Uzeda, B. & Larrea-Alcazar, D. (eds.) Memoirs of Symposium “Modelaje de distribución de especies y aplicaciones en ecología y conservación”, III Bolivian Congress on Ecology in Sucre (2011), Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza. Editorial FAN, Santa Cruz.

Moraes R., M., Boris Rios-Uzeda, Luís René Moreno, Gladis Huanca-Huarachi & Daniel Larrea-Alcázar. in press. Using models for potential distribution patterns of species richness, endemism, and phytogeography of palm species in Bolivia. Tropical Conservation Science Journal. Accepted October, 2013.

FRUIT CHEMISTRY AND PRODUCTIVE POTENTIAL OF PALMS

As a collaboration with the Department of Chemistry at UMSA we got funds from the Bolivian Government Fund from Hyrdrocarbon evaluate biochemical components and production potential of six native useful palms of Bolivia. A graduate thesis and following publications were generated:

Lozada, S. 2012. Estructura poblacional y producción de frutos de la palmera “totaí” (Acrocomia aculeata) en Beni y Santa Cruz. Graduate thesis on biology, Carrera de Biología, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, La Paz. Advisor: Mónica Moraes.

Lozada G., S. & M. Moraes R. 2012. Estructura poblacional del “totaí” (Acrocomia aculeata, Arecaceae) según presencia de ganado en localidades de Beni y Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Pp. 23. En: Moraes R., M., F. Montoya & M. Cornejo (eds.) Memorias del congreso. II Congreso Boliviano de Botánica y III Congreso Latinoamericano de Etnobiología, Herbario Nacional de Bolivia, Instituto de Ecología, Carrera de Biología, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, La Paz.

Lozada, S. & M. Moraes R. 2013. Estructura poblacional del totaí (Acrocomia aculeata, Arecaceae) según presencia de ganado en localidades de Beni y Santa Cruz (Bolivia). Ecología en Bolivia 48(2): 72-86.

Moraes R., M. 2012. Evaluación productiva de seis palmeras nativas de Bolivia. Pp. 72-73. En: Moraes R., M., F. Montoya & M. Cornejo (eds.) Memorias del congreso. II Congreso Boliviano de Botánica y III Congreso Latinoamericano de Etnobiología, Herbario Nacional de Bolivia, Instituto de Ecología, Carrera de Biología, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, La Paz.

MANAGEMENT PLAN OF AN ENDEMIC PALM

Collaboration with the Fundación Natura Bolivia and WWF in Bolivia as well as with local producers of the sunkha palm, workshops and reports were elaborated in order to produce a publication for further divulgation:

Moraes R., M. 2011. Plan de manejo de la palmera sunkha (Parajubaea sunkha Moraes). Fundación Natura Bolivia, Santa Cruz. 61 p.

ADVISORY COMMITTEE TO AN ACADEMIC PROJECT FUNDED BY DANIDA IN BOLIVIA

In collaboration with the Universidad Pontificia Autónoma Francisco Xavier de Chuquisaca in Sucre, advice to a MSc.

Moraes R., M. 2011. Arecaceae. Pp. 113-119. En: Carretero M., A., M. Serrano P., F. Borchsenius & H. Balslev (eds.) Pueblos y Plantas de Chuquisaca. Estado del conocimiento de los pueblos, la flora, uso y conservación. BEISA 2, Herbario Regional del Sur, Universidad Mayor, Real y Pontificia de San Francisco Xavier de Chuquisaca, Sucre.

CONSERVATION AND SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT OF PLANTS AND VEGETATION OF BOLIVIA

In collaboration with the Biodiversity section of the Bolivian Ministry of Environment and Water as well as with other Bolivian institutions we produced the following publication:

Moraes R., M. &. M. J. Velarde V. 2009. Frutos de asaí (Euterpe precatoria) para pulpa de refrescos y helados. VMABCC-Bioversity International, Herbario Nacional de Bolivia – UMSA, La Paz. 20 p.

Interaction with Political Level

PALMS has interacted with the administrative-political system in the entire region and in each of the countries throughout the projects duration, starting in 2009 and continuing towards the project termination by the end of 2013, and with plans to continue post-project.

REGIONAL through the Local Advisory Committees

The Local Advisory Committees have included several members from the administrative-political systems in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. As documented on the PALMS webpage there has been a two way dialogue between the PALMS researchers and the members of these committees. All WP leaders have presented their work, and the local advisory committees (with administrative-political members) have commented on PALMS’ activities and made suggestions for improvements in the project, whereas PALM researchers provided the members with insights from the projects that were useful for their work. There have been seven such meetings with the local advisory committees and the best documented one is the last one held in Lima in September 2013. The webpage includes all PowerPoint presentations from the meeting, and a document that cites all comments and suggestions from the committee members in Spanish AND ENGLISH. The other meetings have been equally detailed, even though the documentation on the webpage is not so detailed.

COLOMBIA

As a result of activities developed by WP5, and the contacts made by project members with government officers, the Ministry of the Environment has launched a National Program for Palm Conservation. This Program, to be formulated by members of WP5, will be delivered in early 2014, and it will be the bases whereupon specific actions will be taken by local environmental authorities for each of the palm species needing particular attention in the country. A launching workshop took pace in Bogotá in September 2013, with attendance of representatives of several local environmental authorities and other state agencies. And although stemming from before the PALMS project started, it is worth mentioning that he Colombian PALMS team has experience in interacting with political powers in the country; for instance researcher (who are now members of the PALMS team) convinced the Catholic Church to ban the use of Ceroxylon leaves for Palm-Sunday. This use had reached very high levels and constituted a threat to the Andean populations of these palms.

ECUADOR

In Ecuador PALMS has worked closely with the Ministry of the Environment, and more specifically with its program BIOCOMERCIO. PALMS researcher Lucia de la Torre has been contracted by the ministry to help out developing an Ecuadorian regulatory framework for extraction of Non Timber Forest Products (NTFPs). Based on the original WP6 publication (de la Torre et al. 2011) reforms to and standardization of protocols for commercial extraction of NTFPs in Ecuador. Management practices were proposed for 317 NTFPs including 30 species of palms and 62 palm-NTFPs. Currently the interaction with this administrative-political level involves the Dirección Nacional Forestal (DNF) and the Dirección Nacional de Biodiversidad (DNB) and lawyers from both departments. This work is to produce management guidelines derived from the PALMS project. The Ecuadorian team collaborates with the project National Forestry Evaluation (Proyecto Evaluación Nacional Forestal) of the Ministry of Environment which sees palms as important elements of the ecosystem services and PALMS is providing relevant information for this purpose. Following the Local Advisory Committee meeting in Lima (September 2013) the WP6 team located in Ecuador has provided Peruvian officials from the Ministry of Agriculture with the legal documentation gathered and the comparisons between the four countries under study in PALMS.

PERU

The Peruvian PALMS team has had close contacts to the Ministry of Environment and the Forestry Ministry. PALMS researcher Betty Millan was appointed by the Government to represent Peru at the 16^th SBSTTA meeting of the Convention of Biodiversity (CBD) in Montreal in 2011. She was also appointed to represent PERU at the 11^th Conference of the Parties (COP11) in Hyderabad, India in 2011. She functions as the Governments expert on the CITES-Flora panel within the Ministry of the Environment (MINAM). She is appointed by the Government as responsible for the technical group for the Application of the Global Plant Conservation Strategy and for the Technical Group for the Taxonomy Initiative, both under the Convention for Biodiversity (CBD). Betty Millan is also the Peruvian Government’s responsible for the Network for Conservation Centers ex situ under the National Commission for Biological Diversity (CONADIB).

BOLIVIA

In Bolivia WP8 has had a constant interaction with the Ministry of Environment and Water coordinating the research activities including collecting of botanical material and specimens of palms in different parts of the country. These contacts have been with the ministry’s staff in the departments dealing with biodiversity, forest management, and access to genetic resources. An integral part of the contact has been to keep the authorities updated with all materials and recommendations produced by the PALMS project, especially the materials produced for outreach. The contacts have been both by the PALMS researchers, but also more officially on behalf of PALMS by the dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of UMSA. When the project started in 2009 the director of the Biodiversity section of the Ministry of Environment and Water, Ing. Aldo Claure was invited to join the local advisory committee of the PALMS and subsequently he has participated in meetings organized by PALMS. These contacts led to forward looking discussions with the biodiversity section regarding the establishment of a Plan for Conservation of Palms in Bolivia. Changes in the Bolivian Government slowed down that process during 2010-2012, but recently the work with this plan has resumed. Most recently UMSA organized a workshop in August 2013 and invited the biodiversity section where this theme has been taken up. Other contacts have been established and in particular with the vice-minister for Science and Technology of the Ministry of Education where PALMS results and recommendations were presented. Among other institutions, WP8 leader Monica Moraes was asked to coordinate a network of biodiversity researchers, and the PALMS project was officially registered in the ministry. Also Monica Moraes was designated as national contact of the ministry for Environment from 2009*. The vice-minister for Science and Technology responded to these contacts by participating in the WP8 organized meeting in August of 2013 and made the closing remarks on this occasion.

*(http://www.infocyt.gob.bo/ciencias_naturales/rni_biodiversidad/proyectos_de_investigacion/21/proyecto_palms_impacto_de_cosecha_de_palmeras_en_bosques_tropicales/).

Collaboration Beyond PALMS - WP 4

Researchers and institutions participating in the FP7-PALMS project are involved in several other related activities that are not funded by the project. These associated activities may, however, provide important background and in some cases additional input to understanding the problems that FP7-PALMS deals with. For WP4 these collaborations have involved the following ones:

BOTANICAL GARDEN AND BOTANICALA MUSEUM BERLIN-DAHLEM

M. Weigend and G. Brokamp collaborated with K. Grotz & H.W. Lack and participated in the elaboration of the exhibition catalogue for the exhibition "The World of Palms" presented at BGBM May 2011-February 2012 and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh July-October 2013.

TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITÄT MÜNCHEN – SCHOOL OF FOREST SCIENCE AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (TUM)

M. Weigend and G. Brokamp supervised N. Valderrama at FU Berlin in the course of her Masters-thesis "Value Chain Investigations on Four Colombian Palm Species" finished in 2011.

CENTER FOR DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH, RHEINISCHE FRIEDRICH-WILHELMS UNIVERSITÄT, BONN (ZEF)

M. Weigend and G. Brokamp supervised Monica Gruezmacher (Tropenbos International) in her thesis on "Continuing the quest for sustainable management – Linking ecology and utilization of palm species in the North-western Amazon region", at Bonn University - thesis to be concluded early 2014.

Collaboration Beyond PALMS - WP 3

We established a collaboration with Dr. Rainer W. Bussmann from the William L. Brown Center of the Missouri Botanical Garden to share ethnobotanical fieldwork in different localities of Peruvian Amazon and Andes. We prepare a series of six books to give back palm ethnobotanical knowledge with their participation:

• Paniagua, N., R.W. Bussmann & M.J. Macía (editors). 2012. “El conocimiento de nuestros ancestros” – Los Ese Eja y su uso de las palmeras, Madre de Dios, Perú. Graficart SRL, Trujillo, Peru. 92 pp. ISBN: 978-0-9848415-6-1.
• Paniagua, N., R.W. Bussmann, E.A. Blacutt & M.J. Macía (editors). 2012. Conservando nuestros bosques – Conocimiento y uso de las palmas en las comunidades campesinas del norte de Bolivia. Graficart SRL, Trujillo, Peru. 95 pp.
• Paniagua, N., R.W. Bussmann, C. Vega, C. Téllez & M.J. Macía (editors). 2012. “Kampanak se usa para el techo pero ya no hay” – Uso y conservación de palmeras entre los Awajun, Amazonas, Perú. Graficart SRL, Trujillo, Peru. 98 pp. ISBN: 978-0-9848415-5-4.
• Paniagua, N., R.W. Bussmann, C. Vega, C. Téllez & M.J. Macía (editors). 2012. “Nuestro conocimiento y uso de las palmeras: una herencia para nuestros hijos” – Comunidades Llaquash, San Martín, Perú. Graficart SRL, Trujillo, Peru. 103 pp. ISBN: 978-0-9848415-3-0.
• Paniagua, N., R.W. Bussmann & M.J. Macía (editors). 2012. “El bosque sí tiene valor” – El uso de palmeras en las comunidades campesinas e indígenas de la región de Inambari, Madre de Dios, Perú. Graficart SRL, Trujillo, Peru. 78 pp. ISBN: 978-0-9848415-4-7.
• Paniagua, N., R.W. Bussmann, E.A. Blacutt & M.J. Macía (editors). 2011. Los Chácobo y las palmeras. Graficart SRL, Trujillo, Peru. 91 pp. ISBN: 978-0-9848415-0-9.