The roles and values of wild foods in agricultural systems

Almost every ecosystem has been amended so that plants and animals can be used as food, fibre, fodder, medicines, traps and weapons. Historically, wild plants and animals were sole dietary components for hunter–gatherer and forager cultures. Today, they remain key to many agricultural communities. The mean use of wild foods by agricultural and forager communities in 22 countries of Asia and Africa (36 studies) is 90–100 species per location. Aggregate country estimates can reach 300–800 species (e.g. India, Ethiopia, Kenya). The mean use of wild species is 120 per community for indigenous communities in both industrialized and developing countries. Many of these wild foods are actively managed, suggesting there is a false dichotomy around ideas of the agricultural and the wild: hunter–gatherers and foragers farm and manage their environments, and cultivators use many wild plants and animals. Yet, provision of and access to these sources of food may be declining as natural habitats come under increasing pressure from development, conservation-exclusions and agricultural expansion. Despite their value, wild foods are excluded from official statistics on economic values of natural resources. It is clear that wild plants and animals continue to form a significant proportion of the global food basket, and while a variety of social and ecological drivers are acting to reduce wild food use, their importance may be set to grow as pressures on agricultural productivity increase.</jats:p

Training Programmes Can Change Behaviour and Encourage the Cultivation of Over-Harvested Plant Species

Cultivation of wild-harvested plant species has been proposed as a way of reducing over-exploitation of wild populations but lack of technical knowledge is thought to be a barrier preventing people from cultivating a new species. Training programmes are therefore used to increase technical knowledge to encourage people to adopt cultivation. We assessed the impact of a training programme aiming to encourage cultivation of xaté (Chamaedorea ernesti-augusti), an over-harvested palm from Central America. Five years after the training programme ended, we surveyed untrained and trained individuals focusing on four potential predictors of behaviour: technical knowledge, attitudes (what individuals think about a behaviour), subjective norms (what individuals perceive others to think of a behaviour) and perceived behavioural control (self assessment of whether individuals can enact the behaviour successfully). Whilst accounting for socioeconomic variables, we investigate the influence of training upon these behavioural predictors and examine the factors that determine whether people adopt cultivation of a novel species. Those who had been trained had higher levels of technical knowledge about xaté cultivation and higher belief in their ability to cultivate it while training was not associated with differences in attitudes or subjective norms. Technical knowledge and perceived behavioural control (along with socio-economic variables such as forest ownership and age) were predictors of whether individuals cultivate xaté. We suggest that training programmes can have a long lasting effect on individuals and can change behaviour. However, in many situations other barriers to cultivation, such as access to seeds or appropriate markets, will need to be addressed

Ethnobotany in the Nepal Himalaya

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Indigenous knowledge has become recognized worldwide not only because of its intrinsic value but also because it has a potential instrumental value to science and conservation. In Nepal, the indigenous knowledge of useful and medicinal plants has roots in the remote past.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The present study reviews the indigenous knowledge and use of plant resources of the Nepal Himalayas along the altitudinal and longitudinal gradient. A total of 264 studies focusing on ethnobotany, ethnomedicine and diversity of medicinal and aromatic plants, carried out between 1979 and 2006 were consulted for the present analysis. In order to cross check and verify the data, seven districts of west Nepal were visited in four field campaigns.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In contrast to an average of 21–28% ethnobotanically/ethnomedicinally important plants reported for Nepal, the present study found that up to about 55% of the flora of the study region had medicinal value. This indicates a vast amount of undocumented knowledge about important plant species that needs to be explored and documented. The richness of medicinal plants decreased with increasing altitude but the percentage of plants used as medicine steadily increased with increasing altitude. This was due to preferences given to herbal remedies in high altitude areas and a combination of having no alternative choices, poverty and trust in the effectiveness of folklore herbal remedies.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Indigenous knowledge systems are culturally valued and scientifically important. Strengthening the wise use and conservation of indigenous knowledge of useful plants may benefit and improve the living standard of poor people.</p

Möglichkeiten zur Trennung und werkstofflichen Verwertung von Kunststoffverbunden

The paper gives a brief sum up of existing recycling technologies for fibre reinforced plastics and sheet composites. It is also shown that the feasibility of recycling these materials not only depends on the technology but on an efficient material flow management

Business ethics competencies research: implications for Canadian practitioners

This paper describes a proposed framework of knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) that a practitioner who is competent in business ethics, compliance, or integrity should possess. These competencies may be leveraged as key input to selecting content for an institutionalized business ethics training program. The focus in this paper is on the management problem of 'What competencies are important for job performance of business ethics practitioners'. Phase I consisted of developing a provisional taxonomy of business ethics competencies and Phase II involved academic and industry practitioners implicated in business ethics to validate the conceptually developed provisional taxonomy of business ethics competencies to eventually make recommendations regarding the selection of business ethics training content. The contribution to the business ethics competency-based management knowledge that is presented in this paper is a proposed business ethics competency model and the implications of this model for Canadian practitioners are discussed

Recruiting project managers: a comparative analysis of competencies and recruitment signals from job advertisements

This research addresses the competencies organizations use through project manager job advertisements. We develop a list of project manager job competencies; break down the competency components into knowledge, skills, and abilities; and conduct a comparative analysis of the use of these competencies. We examine the online contents of project manager job advertisements in the public domain. Analysis shows that industry job advertisements emphasize “soft skills” and competencies in a manner different than that in the literature. Additionally, differences are found across countries and between industries. Implications from the findings highlight the incongruent dissemination of project manager competencies, regional and industrial demands, and the recruitment of project managers