Australian National
Botanic Gardens
I have never had the chance to
travel to Canberra, or even Australia,
but if I go I will certainly pass by the
Australian National Botanic Gardens to
see the Aboriginal Trail. The
interpretive booklets are a good calling
card, full of fine line drawings that
depict not only plants along the trail,
but also their traditional uses.
Attractive to the general public, they
are also up to the standards of
ethnobotanists, giving scientific names,
habitats and flowering seasons of plants
as well as short descriptions of the use
of each plant part. /GJM
The Australian National Botanic
Gardens (ANBG) has a very active
education program through which it
strives to encourage all sectors of the
community to use the Gardens and learn
from them. It seeks to encourage an
understanding of Australia’s plants
and to promote the teaching of
environmental awareness both in Australia
and internationally.
The Gardens’ Education Service
has produced a range of packages designed
for students and other visitors,
including worksheets, teachers’
notes, maps and other materials focusing
on Australia’s flora and ecosystems.
Booklet titles include How to Propagate
Native Plants and Aboriginal Plant Use in
Southeastern Australia. Other resources
include videos, slide sets, posters and
books. An Aboriginal Trail has been
created in the Gardens, along which some
of the plants traditionally used by
Aborigines can be found.
In order to raise the profile of
botanical, environmental and
horticultural studies in educational
curricula, the Education Service provides
advice on curriculum development and
offers a consultancy service to teachers
and other professionals.
‘When Europeans first
came to Australia almost every
Aboriginal person would have been
skilled in some form of
fibrecraft.Today, in southeastern
Australia only a very small number of
mostly elderly women and some men now
have knowledge of traditional
fibrecrafts. These people value their
skills and are in most cases eager to
pass on these skills to younger
generations. The main items produced
now are coiled baskets and mats.In
the more remote areas of northern
Australia, there are still keen and
very skilled fibreworkers. These are
mainly women who sell their products,
including bags (coiled and twined),
string bags and different sized
mats.Traditional designs and
materials have undergone
modifications. For example, in Arnhem
Land cardboard boxes are boiled along
with the plant fibre material to
extract the blue-grey ink from the
paper.
Anonymous.
(no date). Teacher’s notes.
Discover The Aboriginal Trail.
Canberra, Australian National Botanic
Gardens
CONTACTS
- Julie
Foster, Australian National
Botanic Gardens, GPO Box 1777,
Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia;
Tel. +61.6.2509450, Fax
+61.6.2509599, e-mail julief@anbg.gov.au.
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Desert
Botanical Garden
An active staff interested in
ethnobotany, including Joe McAuliffe,
Edward Anderson, Wendy Hodgson and Ruth
Greenhouse, ensure that plants and people
of the Sonoran Desert are an ongoing
focus of the Desert Botanical Garden.
/GJM
The Desert Botanical Garden is a
privately funded, non-profit organization
located in the Sonoran Desert. Founded in
1937, the Garden is dedicated to
education, conservation and research of
the desert habitat. Research interests
focus on the food plants and traditional
agricultural systems of the region.
Through educational activities, the
Garden seeks to promote the use of arid
land plants and cultivars adaptable to
desert life and water-saving gardening
techniques. Training courses are
regularly held, including education
workshops for teachers. The Garden staff
has organized workshops for farmers of
arid lands to demonstrate local
agroecology methods and traditional
desert cropping methods. An outdoor
exhibit and trail on the plants and
people of the Sonoran Desert have been
developed. The Garden publishes a wide
range of books and journals, including
the Sonoran Quarterly (formerly the
Saguaroland Bulletin), and Agave, which
is issued occasionally.
‘Little is known about
the Paleo-Indians that swept across
North America between 10,000 and
15,000 years ago, other than that
they were nomadic big game hunters.
Subsequent scattered nomadic bands
spread into southwestern North
America from 10,000 to 2000 years
ago, perhaps reversing the earlier
movement and coming northward from
Mexico. The Hohokam Indians, who
evolved from the earlier Cochise
Culture and immigrants from Mexico,
occupied much of southern Arizona
from about 2000 years ago to A.D.
1450. They developed a complex
society based on agriculture that
flourished in the desert. The Hohokam
irrigation system was the most
extensive in North America with more
than 300 miles of canals in the
Phoenix area alone.’
Anonymous.
1986. The Sonoran Desert. Agave,
Special Issueon Plants and People of
the Sonoran Desert.
CONTACTS
- Jane Cole,
Librarian, Desert Botanical
Garden, 1201 N. Galvin Parkway,
Phoenix, Arizona 85008, USA; Tel.
+1.602.9411225, Fax
+1.602.4818124, e-mail adjbc@asuvm.inre.asu.edu
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 There are
more than 100 botanical gardens
in China. |
Ethnobotanical
Park OMAERE
This promising project seeks to
create incentives for the conservation of
useful plant resources and local
indigenous knowledge systems through a
lively ex situ ethnobotanical garden.
Lawrence Lebrun and Noemi Paymal, two
pillars of Omaere Park, have been
instrumental in designing the project,
finding the funding and finally making it
a reality. While both are French
citizens, their commitment to working in
close collaboration with Amerindian
institutions and individuals and their
capacity to integrate the local
perspective are the bases of the success
of this project. /YA
The Ethnobotanical Park OMAERE (Parque
Pedagógico Etnobotánico OMAERE y
Estación Científica) is located in the
tropical forest of the Upper Amazonian
region of Ecuador, near the town of Puyo.
The Park, opened to the public since
1994, is a multi-disciplinary research
and training center for both local people
and foreigners. An ethnobotanical garden,
currently under development, will include
a comprehensive collection of rain forest
plants. There are five main activities
within the park: (1) investigation of the
botanical diversity of the Ecuadorian
Amazon, and the development of a
germplasm bank and database; (2) study of
the ethnology and ethnobotany of the
indigenous cultures in the Ecuadorian
Amazon; (3) training and technical advice
to promote sustainable management of the
area, for example, establishing
nurseries, delimiting reserve areas,
forestry and agroforestry activities; (4)
development of educational activities and
materials, including publications on the
local plants, audio-visual materials, and
educational paths through the park and
other reserves; and (5) research into the
use of plant genetic resources, and its
promotion for the improvement of the
economy of the local communities.
CONTACTS
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Nanjing
Botanical Garden
Environmental education is a new
but rapidly growing field in China.
Nanjing Botanical Garden is playing a
leading role in developing and in
promoting environmental education
throughout the country. /ALH
The Nanjing Botanical Garden began its
education program in the late 1970s. One
of its principal tasks is to make science
and botany more accessible to the general
public, and particularly to young people.
The Garden has worked extensively with
schools, and has developed a program to
complement classroom teaching. This
includes outings in the Garden,
story-telling sessions and using plants
in handicrafts. Summer and winter camps
are also organized, as well as lectures
and training courses for both students
and teachers. Lectures have been given on
flower customs, biodiversity and
conservation, and Chinese herbal
medicine, while the training courses
cover subjects such as grafting and
pruning techniques.A slightly different
approach to education is being developed
through the Garden’s efforts to
increase people’s appreciation of
nature through art. Exhibitions are
regularly held on botanical illustration,
flower arranging and using fruit and
vegetables in sculpture. School children
are encouraged to use plants in their art
work, for example, using dried flowers to
create pictures. The Garden has done a
great deal of work to raise the profile
of plants and environmental issues
through the media. A television series
for children has been made and two radio
programs, entitled Man and Plants and
Flowers and Cultures, were produced in
collaboration with local stations.The
Garden has been cooperating closely with
BGCI in developing education programs. As
a result of this collaboration, in 1994
the Garden began publication of Roots
Digest, an education newsletter that
informs readers about the latest news,
views and ideas in botanic garden
education, aiming to stimulate botanic
gardens in China to develop their own
education programs. In addition, BGCI and
Nanjing Garden jointly organized the
first botanic garden education course and
training workshop, held in 1996.
CONTACTS
- Li Mei,
Nanjing Botanical Garden, Mem.
Sun Yat-Sen, Jiangsu Institute of
Botany, P.O. Box 1435, Nanjing
210014, China;
Tel. +86.25.4432075, Fax
+86.25.4432074, e-mail jsszzzzz@public1.ptt.js.cn
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