Sponsored by Manfred-Hermsen-Stiftung, Bremen
Trade in “organic” wild products is becoming more and more important, not only within the food sector but also in the personal health care and the medicinal herb sector. These sectors overlap as one species is often used for several end products. Currently available certification criteria or standards addressing wild collection, as for example organic certification schemes, often do not provide sufficient guidance to ensure the long term survival of wild populations. The International Standard for Sustainable Wild Collection of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (ISSC-MAP) aims to provide this guidance in form of a set of principles and criteria that can be applied to the management of medicinal and aromatic plant species and their ecosystems. It could also serve as a basic tool for audit and certification of wild collection in the organic sector.
This workshop is part of the still ongoing development process of the ISSC-MAP, which is being implemented by the Medicinal Plant Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), WWF Germany and TRAFFIC, and the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN). So far ISSC-MAP has been discussed and tested for its applicability in several field projects.
During this workshop possible implementation strategies for the ISSC-MAP will be discussed and analysed considering their applicability in the medicinal and aromatic plants sector of South-Eastern Europe. South-Eastern and Eastern Europe are the prime source regions for wild collected medicinal and aromatic plants in Europe and therefore one of the important target regions for the implementation of this international standard.
Concrete strategies, adapted to the context, will be elaborated. Target persons for the meeting are representatives from communities involved in wild collection, buyers, processors, users of wild plants, developers of standards and certification systems, governmental or intergovernmental organisations in the sectors and service providers to any of these groups.
For further information on the ISSC-MAP project please visit www.floraweb.de/map-pro or email: MAP-Standards-Criteria@wwf.de.