Trees, landscapes, restoration, Ethiopia, Tree Diversity Day 2014, CBD, biodiversity, invasive species, seedlings, policy, food, diet, medicinal plants, Aichi targets, nutrition

1. Capacity Building for Access and Benefit
Sharing and Conservation and Sustainable Use
of Medicinal Plants Project
Tesfaye Awas (PhD)
National Coordinator
Medicinal Plant Project Management Unit
Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute
P. O. Box 30726, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
E-mail: absmp@ibc.gov.et

2. GEF funded Projects under Execution by EBI
• Mainstreaming Agro-biodiversity
Conservation into Agricultural Production
Systems of Ethiopia
– May 2011 to June 2016.
– USD 386360
• Capacity Building for Access and Benefit
Sharing and Conservation and Sustainable
Use of Medicinal Plants in Ethiopia
– September 2012 to August 2016.

3. Mainstreaming Agro-biodiversity
• GEF/UNDP
• Three components
– Enabling policy
– Marketing
– Conservation
• Three crops
– Teff
– Enset
– Durum wheat
– Coffee

4. Capacity Building for
Access and Benefit Sharing and
Conservation and
Sustainable Use of Medicinal Plants Project
Tesfaye Awas (PhD)
National Coordinator
Medicinal Plant Project Management Unit
Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute
P. O. Box 30726, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
E-mail: absmp@ibc.gov.et

5. • UNEP/GEF funded four year project which
was launched in September 2012.
• The goal of the project is to safeguard
Ethiopia’s medicinal plants biodiversity, which
are also globally significant.
• The objective is to ensure conservation and
sustainable use of medicinal plants and the
effective implementation of national access
and benefit sharing (ABS) regime.

6. Project Cost
• Cost to the GEF Trust Fund in CashUS$ 2,047,000 (45%)
• Co-financing-In-kind, GoE US$ 2,500,000 (55%)
• Total US$ 4,547,000 (100%)

7. Landscape and ecosystem diversity
–High rate of species diversity and
endemism
• 6500-7000 plant species
– About 12 % are endemic
– About 14% are used as medicinal plants

8. Figure 1. Published volumes of the Flora of Ethiopia and Eritrea.

9. Total Holding
of EBI
73786
accessions
•2744
samples
(accessions)
•51 medicinal
plant species
Medicinal
plants are
about 4% only

10. Cold Room Field Gene Bank
Year No. of
species
No of
samples
No of
species
No of
samples
2003 31 662 115 323
2014 51 2744 630 822

12. Component 1
• Will focus on the in-situ and ex-situ conservation
and sustainable use of medicinal plants in
selected conservation and production sites
• by
– Improving the conservation status of threatened
medicinal plant species;
– Ensuring sustainable use of medicinal plants and
– Providing new and diversified livelihoods
opportunities for local communities in the project
sites.

13. Tesfaye Awas (PhD), IBC

14. Conservation
• Four Sites: 313,031ha under in situ conservation
• Nursery: A total of 8 nurseries were established and
made operational.
– Seedlings were supplied for enrichment plantation in buffer
areas of in situ conservation sites and Home Gardens
• Medicinal Plant Field Gene Bank
– 2 Medicinal Plant Field Gene Banks conserving strengthened
• 630 Samples
• 400 species
– 3 New Medicinal Plant Field Gene Banks and
– 1 Botanical Garden are under establishment

16. Vegetation (and Land use) in Bale Mountains National
Park and Surrounding Areas

17. Agarfa -August 2003 17

25. 25

26. Albizia malacophylla-Oxytenanthera abyssinica
Habitat of many rare plants & animals

27. Drosera madagascariensis-
Insectivorous
The risk of Malaria is 3 times higher
in degraded area

28. Component 2
• Will deal with the enabling policy and
institutional framework for in situ and ex
situ conservation of medicinal plants
biodiversity and will
–Carry out review of existing policy, law
and legislation for medicinal plants;
–Strengthen ABS capacity and
–Raise awareness about ABS issues.

29. Policy/legal issue
• Local bylaws documented and utilized
– Implementation of Management plan of in situ
conservation
• Eg. Field crop and animal production is not allowed in
Zegie Forest
– Establishment of Medicinal Plant Marketing
Association

30. Policy/legal issue
• Existing legal documents in three sectors (health,
agriculture and environment) were reviewed
– Conservation EBI
– Regulation of Traditional Medicine MOH
– Research on Traditional Medicine (dosage, safety and
efficacy)
– No provision for production- Focus on Food
production
– No system to encourage Traditional Medicine
– Good initiatives for conservation, but there is
institutional gap

31. Institutional Issue
• Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute
– PGRC/E from 1976 to 1998
– IBCR through the proclamation No. 120/98 and 167/1999 (as revised).
• There were ten technical departments during IBCR
– Medicinal Plant Genetic Resources Department
– Horticulture
– Crop
– Forest
– Forage and Pasture
– Animal
– Microbial
– Ethno biology
– Biotechnology
– Ecosystem

32. Institutional Issue
• The current institutional structure of EBI
– ABS
– Animal
– Microbial
– Crop and horticulture
– Forest and Rangeland Biodiversity
• Currently the responsibility for medicinal plant conservation
and sustainable use is blurred
• The need of a plat form to link Medicinal Plant Conservation,
Production, Marketing and Research (dosage, safety, efficacy)
• Traditional medicine

33. Component 3
• Deals with markets for medicinal plants
friendly products by
–Increasing markets by at least 50%
through expansion of value-chains,
national and international markets that
will
–Promote farmer uptake of medicinal
plants conservation imperatives.

34. Knowledge, innovations and practices
of indigenous and local communities
embodying traditional lifestyles related
to medicinal plants provides
opportunities for the development of
new products e.g. pharmaceuticals,
which in turn have implications for
income generation.
Children and women are the
social group that sell
medicinal plants mainly along
streets. The contribution of
this economics to household
income and food security is
significant.
Children selling endemic
medicinal plant- Thymus
schimperi gathered from
Bale Mountains National
Park

35. Children selling endemic medicinal plant- Echinops
kebericho gathered from Central Highlands of Ethiopia

36. Children and women gathering the young shoots of
Oxytenanthera abyssinica for food (Western Ethiopia)

37. Market
• Marketable plants were identified
• Farmers were organized in Medicinal Plant
Marketing Associations
• Moringa Marking from local to national-has
benefited farmers
• Challenge: link to national and international
markets-Lack of legal provision due to issues
related to
– Certification
– Safety
– Efficacy
– Dosage

39. Component 4
• Will build capacity through
strengthening institutional
frameworks for
–the wider application of ABS
measures in Ethiopia and,
–for the conservation and
sustainable use of medicinal plants
biodiversity in particular.

40. Conservation and sustainable use
• Trainings
– Wild seed handling techniques
– Botanical Garden
• Facilities

44. ABS capacity
• Nagoya protocol, existing ABS national law
and regulation were translated into three local
languages
• Dissemination of legal documents
• Awareness raising workshops
• Training on Negotiation Skill

45. •Thank you