A newsletter on tree cultivation and marketing of products and services from trees.
Published by World Agroforestry Centre, Kenya treesandmarketsonline@cgiar.org
Volume 2, No. 3, January 2005
Input to this quarter's issue comes from: Amy Cole - Research and Markets Ltd., David
Kaimowitz - CIFOR, Diane Russell, Eliot Masters, Jimmy Kiio, Ramni Jamnadass, Roeland Kindt,
Sandra Velarde , Stella Muasya, Tom Vandenbosch and Tony Simons
The Trees and Markets Team at ICRAF wishes you a Happy New Year. We start by encouraging you to start noticing plants because plants are critical to the quality of our lives and there can be no doubt that our physical and emotional well being is dependent on our connections to the natural environment around us. These are not new messages for those of us in the field, nor are they novel messages for all those who garden or who love gardens and the beauty of the natural environment. However, in a surprisingly powerful research paper (Wandersee and Schussler,
2001), we are alerted to a serious affliction, particularly affecting the population of the United
States through not exclusive to our boundaries. It is a condition known as plant blindness. This condition has the following specific symptoms:
 The inability of see or notice plants in one’s environment
 The inability to recognize the importance of plants in the biosphere and in human affairs
The inability to appreciate the aesthetic and unique biological features of the life forms  belonging to the plant kingdom; and
 The misguided anthropocentric ranking of plants as inferior to animals, leaving the conclusion that plants are not worthy of human consideration.
In short, the symptoms of plant blindness is that afflicted persons are unable to recognise and appreciate the esthetic value of plants or believe that plants are worthy of consideration!
We in the plant sciences, in the green industry and in the green professions have our work cut out to counter the effects of plant blindness in our world. How can we even consider placing

sufficient focus on growing enough food if as a society we fail to see plants as being important?
Where are our botany classes in high school and university? What is happening to horticultural instructions? Where is the money for plant research? Are we collectively addressing this as a serious affliction? As a culture, is the relationship of plants to people even on our radar screen?
Let me suggest that public gardens and public green spaces can provide an antidote to this indifference. They can provide the vehicle for connecting plants to people everywhere. At the outset, however, let me point out that gardens and green spaces need not be the sole antidote of the condition of plant blindness. If we had stories about plants on the front page of every newspaper along with stories about war and other things that are important in the world, that would be a good thing. If we had important books that hit the best-seller list, as did the Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, that would be a good thing. So we need to trudge forward on lots of fronts, but let me focus here on what can be achieved with public gardens and public green spaces. I have had a special opportunity over the last 24 years to observe what a public garden can do to connect people to plants. This connection was my focus as a professional. The Walt
Disney World Resort in Florida receives 40 million visitors a year; 40 million people we could influence with respect to valuing plants gardens. What an opportunity for a plant person to do something meaningful.
Outdoor public places are where we come together in communities – young and old, rich and poor, the totally fit and those struggling to move around, and all cultures whether we speak the native tongue or not. It is here that we meet our neighbours and chat; it is here that we walk our dogs, grow and share our vegetables in community gardens, picnic with the family, stroll together in the waning light of day, and watch the children play. There has been great enthusiasm for outdoor public places in America, the belief being that they improve our urban environment. In New York City there was an outcry to “save the community gardens” and we did. Building public plazas has again become a major focus and was successful recently in West
Palm Beach, Florida. Recapturing industrial areas back for public use – there are great examples in San Francisco and Greenville, South Carolina. Revitalizing water fronts; reconnecting the fabric of cities with public space that goes over or under highways;…Seattle and Boston have good examples. Preserving scenic parkways – the George Washington Parkways in Alexandra,
Virginia is a stellar example of one of America’s great scenic parkways. Greening up school yards
– Chicago, and the State of California are both making huge efforts there. Where these spaces are well designed, well maintained and safe, and where they are connected by mass transit or by sidewalks, everyone has access and the city is considered livable.
Perhaps the public consciously knows why it feels good in these spaces, but I dare say it is often a subliminal reality. People feel good but they have no idea it is our research, our understanding of how and where plants grow, and our collective commitment to making plants be part of the world we live in that are behind every successful green space. We believe that important values are communicated in public spaces, particularly public green spaces, but do we really know, beyond anecdotal accounts, what works and why? By celebrating the art and science of horticulture, by using experiential knowledge, by observing carefully, and by being as innovative and creative as possible, I believe we can communicate the magic, beauty, and the importance of plants to every single person who enters a public landscape.
So what are the values that we communicate directly through our public open green spaces, whether it be a public park, botanic garden, theme park, city square or even planters lining a very busy boulevard; whether it be a series of front yards or a community garden where ethnic communities come together to grow their vegetables, a pocket park or a flower market?
Whether large or small, native or cultivated, these public outdoor places offer opportunities to make connections, plants to people and people to plants. These outdoor places clearly demonstrate the values that we set forth as important in society.

References:
Wandersee, J and E. Schussler. 2001. Toward a theory of plant blindness. Plant Sci. Bull.
47(1):2-9
The Projet d'Appui Technique à la Filière Karité (ProKarité) is currently being implemented by
ICRAF in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger - a pilot platform from which ICRAF has begun to engage national-level participation and technical collaboration from the 16 countries of the
African shea zone, including Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon,
Central African Republic, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda.
A slow-growing tree indigenous to the African parkland savanna, the shea tree provides an annual bounty of nutritious fruit, the seeds of which are processed into shea butter, an ancient food oil of great nutritional and economic significance to rural women and their households.
While shea butter serves as a cocoa butter substitute or improver in confectionary, its therapeutic and healing properties have become better known to the cosmetics and pharmaceuticals industries.
With primary support from the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC), the goal of the ProKarité project is to raise the value of shea kernel and shea butter of enhanced or ‘optimised’ quality in order to increase returns to rural producers, which should serve as an effective financial incentive for the long-term management of the shea resource, and the woodland landscapes it distinguishes across Africa.
An important objective of the project is to establish a regional and international consensus on issues of shea product quality and certification as a basis for enhanced ‘trace-ability’ along the supply chain, and improved returns to producers as an incentive for more sustainable management of the shea resource. Applied research on shea provenances (as defined by chemical ‘signatures’ by geographic origin) may also add value for a range of product applications.
In October 2004, the ProKarité project brought together representatives of each of the 16 shea producing countries for a Regional Consultative Workshop, in order to build a regional consensus on key technical issues of shea product quality, and to construct an institutional basis upon which a regional product certification system may be established.
More information: ‘www.prokarite.org’
(full opportunities on our website under construction)
African Development Dissertation Workshop Program http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/RADW/index.html
Arthur B. Schultz Foundation http://www.absfoundation.org/outline.html
Canandian Association for African Studies http://caas.concordia.ca/htm/fundE.htm
European Union Funding opportunities

http://europa.eu.int/comm/europeaid/cgi/frame12.pl
Financial Information Engine on Land Degradation http://www.gm-unccd.org/FIELD/Funds.htm
Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program for West Africa http://www.afard.org/English/In_engl.htm
Grants / Funding / Fellowships in West Africa http://www.fara-africa.org/grants.htm
Intel Public Affairs International Contribution http://www.intel.com/community/international.htm
Managed Ecosystems--Integrated Project Awards http://www.csrees.usda.gov/funding/rfas/pdfs/05_nri.pdf
National Research Initiative: Managed Ecosystems http://www.csrees.usda.gov/fo/fundview.cfm?fonum=1104
Small Grants Programme for Operations to Promote Tropical Forests in Southeast Asia http://www.sgpptf.org/home.asp
St Andrew's Prize for the Environment www.thestandrewsprize.com
(full group on our website under construction)
DRYAD - a database of trees http://www.gcw.nl/dryad/
Environment and forests in developing countries http://europa.eu.int/comm/europeaid/projects/forests/index_en.htm
Forest Conservation Portal http://forests.org/
Forest World http://www.forestworld.com
International Maximum Residue Limit Database http://www.mrldatabase.com
Non-Timber Forest Products http://www.ifcae.org/ntfp/index.shtml
Plant Diseases Database http://laurel.nal.usda.gov:8080/agnic/pmp/
Plant Glosary http://www.hort.uconn.edu:591/glossary.html
The Rainforest Plants Database http://www.rain-tree.com/plants.htm
Rooting Database http://telework.ucdavis.edu/root/pchome.htm
Braziliand Agroforestry Network www.rebraf.org.br
Certified Forest Products Council http://www.certifiedwood.org/
Climate Trust http://www.climatetrust.org/
CropLife Fouundation

http://www.croplifefoundation.org/
Forest Conservation Links http://forests.org/links/
Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities http://www.hfhcp.org
Kenya Association of Forest Users kafu@mitsuminet.com
National Agroforestry Center http://www.unl.edu/nac/
Natural Resource Conservation Service http://www.nrcs.usda.gov
/
Pacific Forest Trust http://www.pacificforest.org
Smartwood http://www.smartwood.org/
Temperate Forest Foundation http://forestinfo.org/
TreeLink.org http://www.treelink.org/
USDA Forest Service http://www.fs.fed.us/
(full list on our website under construction)
Agroforestry Newsline www.aftaweb.org/resources1.php?page=7
Association of Consulting Foresters www.acf-foresters.com
Eco-Farm Association www.eco-farm.org
Environmental News Network http://www.enn.com/index.asp
Focus on Trade http://www.focusweb.org/publications/Bulletins/Fot_index.htm
Food Not Lawns
Forestry www.foodnotlawns.com
FOREST@NIC.FUNET.FI
Forestry Management Decision Support System
FMDSS-L@PNFI.FORESTRY.CA
International Environment and Sustainable Development http://www.iisd.ca/email/subscribe.htm
Native SeedSEARCH www.nativeseeds.org
Non-Wood Forest Products mailserv@mailserv.fao.org
Market Farming
Send with the message: "subscribe NWFP-Digest-L".
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/marketfarming
The World In a Seed http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/19998/
World Congress of Agroforestry Update

http://conference.ifas.ufl.edu/wca/newsletters/1stworldcongress3.htm
(full bibliography on our website under construction)
Achieving Widespread Impact through Agricultural Research http://www.ciat.cgiar.org/index.html#book_scaling
Agroforestry and Biodiversity Conservation in Tropical Landscapes www.aftaweb.org/bookshop1.php?page=35
Agroforestry Research Trust - U.K. http://www.agroforestry.co.uk/
Certified Wood Products Market http://www.certwdmkt.com/
Environmental Observatory http://www.environmentalobservatory.org/
Forest Health http://ext.nrs.wsu.edu/forest_health.htm
Forestry and Woodworking - 2003-2008 World Outlook http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c8261
Living Forest Cooperative http://www.livingforestcoop.com
Medicinals http://www.frontierherb.com/index.html
Paulownia Homepage http://www.paulownia.com/
Special Forest Products www.se4702.forprod.vt.edu/special_fp/special_fp.htm
Sustainable Forestry Initiative http://www.afandpa.org/forestry/sfi_frame.html
Sustainable Forestry Partnership http://sfp.cas.psu.edu/index.htm#home
Taking Stock of Biodiversity to Stem Its Rapid Decline http://www.plosbiology.org/plosonline/?request=getdocument&doi=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0020413
The Invasive Species Initiative http://tncweeds.ucdavis.edu/
The truth about non-timber forest products http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art4
Tropical Tree Seed Manual http://www.rngr.net/Publications/ttsm
Wildwood Forest http://ecoforestry.ca/Wildwood/default.htm
January 13-14, 2005
Summit on Climate Change Risks & Opportunities: Learning from the Leaders
New York, NY
Contact : Robyn Stewart
Center for Economic and Environmental Partnership, Inc., New York
Tel: 1-518-432-6400

Email: robyn@ceepinc.org
Web Site: http://www.climatechangenyc.org/
January 16-21, 2005
V International Symposium on Mineral Nutrition of Deciduous Fruit Crops
Talca (Chile)
Contact: Dr. Jorge Benjamin Retamales
University of Talca, Escuela de Agronomía,
Casilla 747, Talca, Chile
Tel. No. (56)71200214
Fax: (56)71200212
Email: jretamal@utalca.cl www.fruitmineralnutrition.cl
January 24–28, 2005
International Conference on Biodiversity/Conférence scientifique internationale sur la biodiversité
Paris, France
Contact: biodiv2005paris@recherche.gouv.fr http://www.recherche.gouv.fr/biodiv2005paris
January 25-28, 2005
UNFF Country-lead Initiative on IAF
Mexico
Contact : Jorge Illueca, UNFF Secretariat
Tel: 1-212-963-3160
Fax: 1-917-367-3186
Email: Illueca@un.org http://www.un.org/esa/forests/
February 1-3, 2005
Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change : A Scientific Symposium on Stabilization of
Greenhouse Gases
Hadley Centre for Climate Research and Prediction (Met Office)
Exeter, UK
Contact: Rhian Checkland
Tel: 44-20-7008-8139
Fax: 44-20-7008-8206
Email: rhian.checkland@cvg.gov.uk http://www.stabilisation2005.com
February 14-18, 2005
Second Session of the United Nations Conference for the Negotiation of a Successor
Agreement to the International Tropical Timber Agreement, 1994
Geneva, Switzerland.
Contact: Alexeï Mojarov, UNCTAD Secretariat
Tel: +41-22-917-5809
Fax: +41-22-917-0051
Email: alexei.mojarov@unctad.org; http://r0.unctad.org/commodities/
February 28 – March 5, 2005

Global Forum on the Review of Women’s Progress on Forestry Management since
Beijing 1995: Towards a Common Agenda
Kampala, Uganda
Contact: Ruth Mubiru, Uganda Women’s Tree Planting Movement
E-mail: ruthmubiru@yahoo.com http://www.un.org/esa/forests/gov-unff.html
February 28 - 5 March, 2005
17th Commonwealth Forestry Conference
Colombo, Sri Lanka contact: Libby Jones
Tel: +44-131-314-6137
Fax: +44-131-316-4344
E-mail: libby.jones@forestry.gsi.gov.uk
March 15-19, 2005
17 th Session on the FAO Committee on Forestry (COFO)
Rome, Italy
Contact: Douglas Kneeland, FAO Forestry Department
Tel: 39-06-5705-3925
Fax: 39-06-5705-5137
Email: douglas.kneeland@fao.org http://www.fao.org/forestry/site/2962/en
April 4-8, 2005
Global Initiative on Forest Landscape Resporation
Petropolis, Brazil
Contact: Carole Saint-Laurent, Coordinator, Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration,
IUC
Tel: 1-416-763-3437
Email: CarSaintL@bellnet.ca http://www.unep-wcmc.org/forest/restoration/globalpartnership/
May 16–27, May 2005
5th Session of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF), UNHQ
New York, USA
Contact: unff@un.org http://www.un.org/esa/forests
June 7-18 July, 2005
Forest Products Marketing (PROMARK)
Los Baños, The Philippines
Contact: College of Forestry and Natural Resources
University of the Philippines Los Baños
P.O. Box 434; College, Laguna 4031, Philippines.
Tel. No.: +(63 49) 536-2268 or 536-2736
Fax: +(63 49) 536-3340.
Email: trees@laguna.net www.apafri.org/trees/index.htm
August 13 -19, 2006
27th International Horticultural Congress & International Horticultural Exhibition
Seoul, Korea

Contact: Convention Team
COEX, World Trade Center
Seoul 135-731, Korea
Tel. No.: +82-2-6000-1085
Fax: +82-2-6000-1306
E-mail: sugie73@coex.co.kr http://211.116.129.35/home/eng/img/mail_img01.jpg
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition
Fred Pearce
Most power stations are surrounded by coal tips or pipes carrying gas. But round the plant that powers the Swedish town of Enköping, some 70 kilometres west of Stockholm, there is willow coppice stretching as far as the eye can see. Enköping is probably the only town in Europe that is powered by biofuels.
The plant's director, Eddie Johansson, says willow is as economic as coal or gas because Sweden levies a tax on carbon emissions from most power plants. Under the government's rules, he does not have to pay the tax because for every tonne of carbon dioxide that disappears up the stack, the plant's willow trees soak up a tonne from the air as they grow. Hundreds of willow-powered plants could operate across Europe, he says, if power companies had similar incentives to cut carbon emissions.
On 1 January, the European Union introduced a system that, if the optimists are right, could make that happen. Rather than imposing a carbon tax, the EU has launched the world's first carbon trading scheme. Its aim is to force down industrial emissions of greenhouse gases and so moderate global warming, while preserving the competitiveness of European companies.
Under the scheme, companies are issued with pieces of paper that grant them permission to emit a certain quantity of CO
2
the atmosphere in a particular year. Companies that do not have enough permissions to cover their emissions will have to buy them in from someone who does.
For more information visit: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6846
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