BDCP Activities

Biodiversity Conservation

Inventories
In collaboration with various national and international agencies, the BDCP is conducting inventories of west and central African forests. Small biodiversity monitoring plots have been established in the Oban-Boshi-Okwangwo forest complex of Nigeria. Work was begun on a large (50 ha), long-term plot in the Korup National Park, Cameroon, in 1996. This Korup Forest Dynamics Plot (KFDP) is a collaborative project with the Center for Tropical Forest Science of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (CTFS/STRI) under the ICBG program. The project provides training and employment for local participants, and data will be used to develop better forest management strategies.

Community Forestry Projects
BDCP has helped communities to establish buffer zones and extractive reserves, such as parks, nature reserves and biological gardens.

BDCP has also assisted communities in cultivating selected tree crops for use as food, fuel and erosion barriers. A trial deep forest farm has been completed in the Akamkpa District of the Cross River State of Nigeria to experiment on the cultivation of Physostigma venenosum, a highly prized medicinal plant. The cultivation technique involves minimal land clearing and no deforestation of any kind. Similar farms are proposed for selected plants found useful as possible raw materials for industrial production.

In 1996, we established the Pygeum Project, a tree planting project located about 14 kilometers from the North West Provincial Capital of Bamenda, Cameroon. The project began with the planting of Prunus africana, a medicinal plant that is nearly extinct. Research is being conducted on intercropping, insect control and irrigation techniques.

Capacity Building
Trust Fund
In conjunction with Shaman Pharmaceuticals (California) and the Healing Forest Conservancy (HFC), we have established the Fund for Integrated Rural Development and Traditional Medicine (FIRD-TM). This trust fund is completely independent but may administer funds only for the purposes outlined in its charter; that is, conservation, drug development and the socioeconomic well-being of rural communities. The HFC has made a $40,000 donation and the Association of Indigenous Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and the Orange Drug Company of Nigeria have pledged additional monies.

The FIRD-TM has an independent board composed of leaders of traditional healers' associations, senior government officials, representatives of village councils and technical experts from scientific institutions. The predominance of traditional solidarity systems supplies a social structure to ensure community participation. Town associations, village heads and professional guilds of healers make decisions regarding the compensation of projects in their localities.

International Centre for Ethnomedicine and Drug Development (InterCEDD)
This Center was established with the help of the BDA in Nsukka, Nigeria, in response to the need for dynamic comprehensive laboratory services. The capabilities of the Center include bulk processing and standardization of phytomedicine as well as maintaining a full herbarium and ethnobotanical database.

The Center holds a library of novel plant extracts which will be made available on a rental basis for screening by multinational pharmaceutical companies and organizations. The Center will also be performing its own screening of extracts to obtain new lead compounds, which are of greater value to pharmaceutical and agrochemical companies. Income and royalties from these activities will be distributed through the FIRD-TM trust fund.

Private-Sector Enterprise
In an exciting new initiative, the BDCP and Biotechnology Development Agency (BDA) will be working with Axxon Biopharm Inc. (Nigeria) on the discovery and sustainable development of a range of natural products for the pharmaceutical, phytomedicine, nutraceutical and personal care industries based on ethnomedical knowledge. Selected products will be marketed in Africa, Europe, the United States and Asia.
The project will provide a biochemical resource center for the analysis and standardization of herbal medicine and cosmetics for the region and will bring state-of-the-art screening technology to Africa. It will build on the consortium already established through the BDCP for collaboration and benefit sharing, and will contribute to the FIRD-TM trust fund.
This initiative is a visible realization of the principle embodied in the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted at the UN Earth Summit at Rio that biodiversity is a resource of sovereign countries that must become an economic asset and a vehicle for technological development.

Technology Transfer
We have assisted universities in Nigeria and Cameroon to acquire basic equipment for work on African medicinal plants and biodiversity conservation. We have also facilitated the granting of funds to the Nigerian Union of Medical Herbal Practitioners for transportation to house calls in remote villages and for the completion of their herbal medicine hospital, pharmacy and herbal garden.

Bioprospecting
The BDCP is collaborating with staff from Shaman Pharmaceuticals in developing new drugs, some for tropical diseases, based on ethnomedical knowledge. Plants are selected based on indigenous use and are collected directly from the local communities. Compensation takes four forms: a small cash payment directly to the informant/collector, assistance with community development projects, medical help with acute life-threatening conditions, and long-term royalties from the licensing of any drugs developed at Shaman. This collaboration has been particularly beneficial in the training and capacity building of BDCP's staff.

International Cooperative Biodiversity Group (ICBG)
While malaria remains the number one killer disease in the world, pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to develop treatments for it since its victims often cannot afford to pay for costly prescription drugs. Coincidentally, the U.S. Army is interested in developing new antiparasitic drugs as part of its strategic programme to protect U.S. troops. The BDCP has been working with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, universities in Nigeria and Cameroon and thirteen other institutions in the development of treatments for malaria, leishmaniasis and trypanosomiasis. This International Cooperative Biodiversity Group (ICBG) is funded through an interagency agreement between the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and National Institute of Health (NIH).

The main focus of the African ICBG project is the establishment of an integrated program for the discovery of medicinally active plants for drug development and the conservation of biodiversity, while ensuring that local communities and source countries derive maximum benefits for their biological resources and intellectual contributions.

With the help of Shaman Pharmaceuticals, the ICBG has developed a highly selective plant selection strategy which has led to a hit rate of more than 85%. The project has led to the identification of indole alkaloids of Picralima nitida as a new type of chemical in the treatment of chloroquine-resistant malaria and possibly the first broad-spectrum antiprotozoan agent for the treatment of leishmaniasis and trypanosomiasis. All intellectual rights are retained by the ICBG and members of our team have unrestricted access to the facilities at the Walter Reed Institute. Selected plant products will be developed all the way to pre-clinical stages before negotiation with commercial partners.

Short-term compensation is given to all scientists and informants/herbalists involved in plant collection. Future royalties will be distributed through an independent legal trust fund consisting of representatives from the U.S., Cameroon and Nigeria. Revenues generated by this project will be used solely for projects which promote conservation of biological diversity, drug development and economic well-being of the communities which provided the resources.

The African members of this ICBG are involved at all stages of the drug development and this experience will enhance their capacity to undertake similar ventures in the future on their own. It is our hope that our work will generate not only pure chemical isolates as pharmaceutical leads but will help the source countries in standardizing their herbal medicines and return such information as benefits to traditional healers.

Information Exchange
Databases
The BDCP has established an off-line database on the economic botany of African plants, the first of its kind on the continent. The database contains information on taxonomic identification (including local names), traditional medicinal uses, chemical constituents, potential industrial application, reported pharmacological activities and toxicity profiles. Collaboration centers scattered over the continent have generated a comprehensive inventory of biological resources called the Computerized Information System of African Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CISAMAP).

International Congresses
One of the BDCP's main projects is the hosting of international congresses on the Utilization of Tropical Plants and the Conservation of Biodiversity. The first was co-sponsored by the Rainforest Alliance (New York) and held in Enugu, Nigeria. The second (Douala, Cameroon) was co-sponsored by the Biodiversity Support Program (BSP), a consortium of the World Wildlife Fund, Nature Conservancy and World Resources Institute. The congresses provide a forum for an interdisciplinary discussion of strategies for the sustainable utilization of tropical plants as economic resources and the development of practical conservation systems that benefit local communities inhabiting tropical forests around the world.

Workshops
We have held workshops on the Commercial Production of Phytomedicines and Cosmetics from Indigenous Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in conjunction with universities, regulatory agencies and health authorities of several African countries, as well as the Organization of African Unity / Science and Technical Research Commission (OAU/STRC). The aim is to formulate strategies for the production and standardization of herbal remedies to make them more available both locally and in the international market while retaining as much of the cultural context as possible. The need to ensure sustainable harvesting is also emphasized.

The BDCP has held two training workshops on the Commercialization of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants. The first was co-sponsored by INBio of Costa Rica for participants from Ghana, Cameroon and Madagascar. The second was held in Pretoria, South Africa in collaboration with the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the International Organization of Chemistry for Development (IOCD). In this workshop, a bioprospecting project for the Republic of South Africa was designed by traditional healers, curators of botanical gardens, university professors and government scientists to be implemented with the input of all. The aim of the project is to develop phytomedicines and pharmaceuticals for both domestic use and export.

Two workshops on the integration of traditional medicine and primary health care have been conducted in collaboration with the Nigerian Union of Medical Herbal Practitioners at Nsukka, Nigeria and Nairobi, Kenya. Both traditional healers and western-trained scientists contributed ideas on how best to adopt traditional healing methods in public health settings and how modern medical science can contribute to the practice of traditional medicine.

A training workshop on Bioprospecting and Strategies for Industrial Exploitation of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants was organized in collaboration with the International Center for Science and High Technology (Trieste, Italy), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and OAU/STRC and was held in Enugu, Nigeria in September of 1997. The objective of this course was to train scientists on the key elements in establishing a bioprospecting programme, as well as on technical aspects of the bioprospecting industry.

An international workshop on Standardization and Regulation of Herbal Medicine was held the following week in Abuja, Nigeria in collaboration with the Nigerian National Agency Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and the West African Pharmaceutical Federation (WAPF). Participants included government representatives, No's, regulatory authorities, pharmaceutical companies, traditional healers' associations and the media. The aim was to define basic criteria for evaluating the quality, safety and efficacy of herbal medicines so that they may be regulated and standardized for the world market.

Finally, a national workshop on the Management of Bioprospecting was held in Accra, Ghana in November of 1997, in conjunction with the Ghanaian Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology as well as the Department of Botany, University of Ghana, Accra. This workshop focused on national policies regarding bioprospecting in Ghana, including conservation, ownership of genetic resources, benefit sharing, value-adding, and plant collection.

Training Courses
In collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution ñ Man and the Biosphere Program, the BDCP has sponsored two training courses, entitled Biodiversity Measuring and Monitoring, in Cameroon and Nigeria. The training programs provide an overview of current biodiversity monitoring procedures. Participants include foresters, representatives of Ministries, university scientists, and government Environmental Protection Agencies. The participants are expected to set up biodiversity plots in their communities, leading to a regional network of plots.

Our Ethnobiology and Field Taxonomy Training Course has been highly successful toward staffing our ethnobotanical inventory and plant identification projects in Nigeria and Cameroon. Participants in the course are drawn from local populations in target areas, as well as the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA), Natural Resources Conservation Council and Ministries of Forestry. The training manual is available to others interested in conducting similar courses in Africa.

A sub-regional workshop entitled Biotechnology: Cell and Tissue Culture Technique was held in collaboration with the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 1996. The workshop aimed at introducing young scientists from universities, research institutes and industries to the techniques of plant cell and tissue culture, with applications to agriculture and related industries.