Trainings on Plant Collection and Utilization Activities, Building up Entrepreneurial Skills and Employment Opportunities for Local Population in Central Europe
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Traditional and wild Promoting traditional collection and use of wild plants to reduce social and economic disparities in Central Europe Background document Trainings on plant collection and utilization activities, building up entrepreneurial skills and employment opportunities for local population in Central Europe Compiled by: TRAFFIC and WWF Hungary January 2013 This project is implemented through the CENTRAL EUROPE Programme co-financed by the ERDF This document is developed within the Project ”Promoting traditional collection and use of wild plants to reduce social and economic disparities in Central Europe” (Traditional and Wild) implemented through the CENTRAL EUROPE Programme co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Reproduction of this document for educational or other non-commercial purposes, or by project related stakeholders and wide public, is authorized without prior written permission from the copyright holder provided the source is fully acknowledged. Any reproduction in full or in part of this document must credit TRAFFIC and WWF Hungary as the official compiler of the document. This document and other materials related to trainings are available on the official website of the project: http://traditionalandwild.eu/en/ Suggested citation: Rodina, K. (Ed). 2013. Background document. Trainings on plant collection and utilization activities, building up entrepreneurial skills and employment opportunities for local population in Central Europe. TRAFFIC and WWF, Budapest, Hungary. 83 pages. Front cover photos: left - Common Juniper (K.Rodina, WWF Hungary/TRAFFIC), centre - Surroundings of Lokve, Slovenia (K.Rodina, WWF Hungary/TRAFFIC), right – Walnut (J.Bernath, Corvinus University, Budapest (Hungary)) This project is implemented through the CENTRAL EUROPE Programme co-financed by the 2 ERDF Table of contents Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................. 4 List of figures ........................................................................................................................................ 5 List of tables ......................................................................................................................................... 6 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 7 1 Historical overview of wild plant utilization ................................................................................. 9 2 Wild plants in daily life ............................................................................................................... 15 3 Basic knowledge about plants .................................................................................................... 24 4 General aspects of plant collection ............................................................................................ 38 5 Aspects of sustainable wild plant collection .............................................................................. 44 6 Post-harvesting and processing of wild plants ........................................................................... 55 7 Marketing, advertising, sales, and entrepreneurial skills .......................................................... 70 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 82 This project is implemented through the CENTRAL EUROPE Programme co-financed by the 3 ERDF Traditional and wild Promoting traditional collection and use of wild plants to reduce social and economic disparities in Central Europe ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The training materials on plant collection and utilization activities, building up entrepreneurial skills and employment opportunities for local population, is developed within the project “Traditional and wild” implemented through the CENTRAL EUROPE Programme co-financed by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The development of the training materials was undertaken by project partners involved in the implementation of the project, i.e. Corvinus University of Budapest (Hungary), WWF Hungary/TRAFFIC (Budapest, Hungary), Village Local Authority Kunadacs (Hungary), South- Transdanubian Regional Resource Centre Nonprofit LTD (Hungary), Association for Development and Promotion of Podkarpackie Voivodeship "PRO CARPATHIA“(Poland), Development Agency Kozjansko (Slovenia), Institution Foundation BIT Planota (Slovenia), Mendel University in Brno (Czech Republic), and Regional Agrarian Chamber of the South Moravian Region Brno (Czech Republic). This background document benefited from the combined help of a large number of individuals who have contributed knowledge, time, materials and expertise to raising importance of the collection and utilization of wild plant resources for potential poverty reduction and improving knowledge of communities on sustainable wild plants’ harvesting and processing. Sincere gratitude is expressed to TRAFFIC staff, in particular, Tom Osborn, Anastasiya Timoshyna and Bryony Morgan. Their substantial inputs to the revision process of the sustainability-related part of the trainings are much appreciated. In addition, thanks to Roland Melisch, Julie Gray and Richard Thomas for technical and communications review of this document. This project is implemented through the CENTRAL EUROPE Programme co-financed by the ERDF LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Plant illustrations of De Materia Medica 10 Figure 2. Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis) 12 Figure 3. Chamomile (Matricaria recutita) 13 Figure 4. Common nettle (Urtica dioica) 17 Figure 5. “Folklore house” dedicated to preserving traditional knowledge about 18 Figure 6. Root morphology 29 Figure 7. Types of leaves 31 Figure 8. Types of flowers 32 Figure 9. Types of fruits 34 Figure 10. Elderberry (Sambucus nigra) 39 Figure 11. Collection area of European blueberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) 47 Figure 12. Ground-ivy (Glechoma hederacea) (A) and Common Mallow (Malva neglecta) (B) 48 Figure 13. Storage of dried plant material in Baksa (Hungary) 52 Figure 14. Natural drying on frames 57 Figure 15. An example of a solar dryer 59 Figure 16. A simple distillation apparatus for extraction of volatile oils 61 Figure 17. Cutter of sorted herbal raw material 66 Figure 18. GIGANT K-531 riddle machine 67 Figure 19. Storage of processed herbal raw material 68 Figure 20. Bulk sale in Czech Republic 73 This project is implemented through the CENTRAL EUROPE Programme co-financed by the 5 ERDF LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Latin names of plant parts 19 Table 2. The most frequently collected and well-known herbs of the Central European region 41 Table 3. Alternatives of a commercial enterprise 71 Table 4. SWOT table template 74 This project is implemented through the CENTRAL EUROPE Programme co-financed by the 6 ERDF Traditional and wild Promoting traditional collection and use of wild plants to reduce social and economic disparities in Central Europe INTRODUCTION Medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) are collected in Central Europe from the wild for traditional use, as well as an additional source of income, particularly important for vulnerable groups such as the Roma communities, women and elderly. Since the middle of the 20th century, traditional knowledge about the properties of these plants and their collection traditions are repeatedly reported as being under threat with urbanization, changes in land ownership (access to collection sites) and in lifestyles. Commercial plant collection that takes place is often done in an unsustainable manner leading to the decline of an important source of employment and income for vulnerable groups. Project: promoting traditional collection and use of wild plants to reduce social and economic disparities in Central Europe (Traditional and wild) aims to prevent the disappearance of this historical knowledge and help improve the livelihoods of vulnerable groups in rural parts of Central Europe was implemented between May 2011 and April 2014. The project involved collaboration between nine organizations from Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Poland, including academic institutions, local authorities, chamber of commerce, and NGOs, bringing together a wide array of expertise to implement the project goals successfully. This document is developed as the main background document handed out to trainees during the trainings on plant collection and utilization, building entrepreneurial skills, and providing employment opportunities. The trainings were conducted by project partners in 2013. The trainees include collectors from target communities: unemployed people, elderly, women and the Romas, in the four aforementioned countries. The present background document is accompanied by the powerpoint presentation slides, which can be downloaded from the project website. The present document contains seven separate chapters related to various aspects of wild plant life. Chapter 1 developed by the Corvinus University (Budapest, Hungary) contains a historical overview of wild plant utilization. Chapter 2 by the Institution Foundation BiT Planota (Slovenia) describes use of wild plants in daily life followed by Chapter 3 on basic knowledge about plants by the Association for Development and Promotion of Podkarpackie Voivodeship “PRO CARPATHIA” (Poland). Chapter 4 developed by the South-Transdanubian Regional Resource Centre Nonprofit