TNRC Event Corruption in the wild plants supply chain: Addressing the social, financial, and environmental costs

TNRC Learning Series
Anti-corruption insights for conservation and natural resource management

Corruption in the wild plants supply chain: Addressing the social, financial, and environmental costs

About the event

Brazil nuts, shea butter, frankincense, Argan oil… They are some of most frequently used wild ingredients in cosmetics, healthcare, and food, but are often completely hidden from the sight of industry and consumers. Wild plant ingredients, or non-timber forest products (NTFPs), often come from the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, supporting livelihoods and well-being to local communities. But there are many challenges around their trade: increasing demand, insufficient knowledge about sustainable harvesting levels, over-harvesting, complex trade chains, lack of traceability, and corruption. The scale and nature of corruption is poorly understood, presenting important risks to livelihoods and the success of conservation efforts.

Join a TNRC Learning Series webinar to learn what corruption in NTFP supply chains looks like, and the gaps in knowledge that still exist. An expert panel will discuss different approaches, which can be used to reduce corruption in NTFP supply chains, their strengths and weaknesses, and recommendations for natural resource management practitioners in implementing programmes with the focus on NTFPs.

The event will feature research from Anastasiya Timoshyna and Eleanor Drinkwater's Topic Brief, Understanding corruption risks in the global trade in wild plants.

Learning questions

1. What does corruption in NTFP supply chains look like?
2. What are the strengths and weaknesses to different approaches to reduce corruption in NTFP supply chains?
3. What recommendations can natural resource management practitioners use when they are implementing NTFP-focused programmes?

About the speakers

Anastasiya Timoshyna, Senior Programme Coordinator – Sustainable Trade, TRAFFIC (Presenter):
Anastasiya coordinates TRAFFIC work around advising governments on developing better regulations to ensure trade is sustainable, developing private sector standards, engaging businesses and facilitating consumer behavioural change. She has thirteen years of experience of working on issues of wildlife trade, most of them with the focus on trade in wild plants. Her work involved projects in China, Viet Nam, Nepal, and Europe. Anastasiya has background in ecology, environmental policy and corporate environmental management. She is a Co-Chair of the IUCN/SSC Medicinal Plant Specialist Group.
 

Abdon Awono, Scientist Forests and Woodfuel, Value Chain, Finance & Investments (VFI) Team, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Yaoundé Hub for Central Africa (Panelist):
Abdon Awono has more than 20 years of experience working in forestry, especially in tropical forest resource management, forest economics, and forest policy and land use systems. He has a PhD in Geography and Land Use Planning from Montpellier III University, France, a Master of Science in Environmental Impact Assessment from Dschang University, Cameroon and another Master of Science in Political Science from Yaoundé II University, Cameroon. Prior to joining this new position at CIFOR as Scientist Forests and Woodfuel Value Chains, Abdon Awono worked with CIFOR from 1997 to 2015 as Researcher conducting research on forest economics and environmental science, with more focus on Non-Timber Forest Product Value Chains across Central and West Africa. From 2015 to 2018, he has performed a number of consultant assignments with the World Bank and Rainforest Alliance, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and German Society for International Cooperation.

Bryony Morgan, Executive Officer, FairWild Foundation (Panelist):
Bryony manages TRAFFIC's programme of work with the FairWild Standard, including acting as Executive Officer for the FairWild Secretariat. In this role she coordinates the FairWild Foundation’s work programme and the development of the FairWild Standard and certification scheme – a third-party audited framework for the sustainable harvest and fair trade of wild plant ingredients (www.fairwild.org). She has worked on sustainable trade and the certification of NTFPs for more than ten years, and has an academic background in biology, conservation and environmental policy.
 

Carsten Smith-Hall, Professor, University of Copenhagen (Panelist):
Carsten has directed a string of international and interdisciplinary research programmes and publishes in both natural and social science journals. His research is particularly focused on (i) environment - livelihood relationships, including the role of environmental products in preventing and reducing poverty, (ii) forests and human health, in particular the role of forests in maintaining and improving welfare in low-income countries, and (iii) commercial utilisation of biodiversity, with emphasis on trade and conservation issues. In the past 25 years, he has worked on commercial Himalayan medicinal plants, including understanding and quantifying illegal trade. He serves on the editorial boards of several international journals.

Bhishma P. Subedi, PhD, Executive Director, Asia Network for Sustainable Agriculture and Bioresources (Panelist):
Bhishma P. Subedi, Executive Director of ANSAB has over 30 years of experience in participatory conservation and rural development programs. Thematic areas of his research and development works include community-based enterprise-oriented natural resource management, ecosystem-based commercial agriculture, community forestry, participatory biodiversity monitoring, access and benefit sharing, land tenure and property rights, non-timber forest products, agroforestry, sustainable forest management, certifications, subsector analysis, business development services market, value chain analysis and development, evidence based policy analysis, constituency building and multi-stakeholders facilitation, among others. He has designed over 80 development and research projects and led the implementation of over 50 projects including those with multiple donors and partners; developed strategies, methodologies and tools; and monitored and evaluated conservation and development programs. The outcomes through his organized programs are noteworthy in bringing positive changes in policies; meaningful improvement in the quality of life of tens of thousands of the poor; and environmental conservation of thousands of hectares of forest and meadows. He has been recognized as the “Champion of the Asia-Pacific Forests” by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.