When CIFOR research assistant, Flavio Contente, first visited the community of Quiandeua in Pará, Brazil, José was a tired and listless little boy, sapped of energy by persistent anemia. By the time Contente returned five months later, José was up and about, running and playing with the other children. The boy’s dramatic recovery shows what can happen when good science meets good communication.

Contente was in Quiandeua in 2005 to follow up on a workshop based around CIFOR’s ‘Frutíferas e Plantas Úteis na Vida Amazônica’ (Fruit Trees and Useful Plants in the Lives of Amazonians).

Edited by CIFOR scientists Patricia Shanley and Gabriel Medina, with contributions from 90 scientists, the book contains simple language, clever illustrations and cartoons to provide semiliterate people with practical information about forest goods, including nutritious fruits and forest medicines. The Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) formally recognised the book’s excellence in 2005 by awarding Shanley the Science Award for Outstanding Communications.

From the beginning, the scientists were determined their work should reach forest people and communities who could make real use of the information. Shanley asked Contente to run workshops for rural communities and foresters who had requested training based on the book.

Training locals to be trainers and using existing networks seemed the ideal way to strengthen local capacity to negotiate forest use.

Since 2005, 630 people have benefited from almost 20 workshops. The workshops focus on widely used forest species but, as Contente explains, the discussions can also bring out other issues.

‘When communities start talking about how they can best use their forest products, they often begin discussing wider issues, like the role of women in natural resource management, and conflict resolution,’ Contente says.

For example, when he first visited Quiandeua, local families mentioned their desire to establish a nursery to produce nutritious food and reestablish some of the species they had lost to logging.

‘It was amazing to see what they had achieved in just five months,’ Contente says of his return visit. ‘The people had built the nursery and it was full of vegetables and medicinal plants.’

Even more exciting was seeing José again. ‘I couldn’t believe it was the same little boy, he looked so strong.’

Contente says José’s mother, Mrs Nazaré, was delighted with the difference CIFOR’s work had made to her family. According to Contente, 'she said the workshop had prompted the community to build the nursery which had then provided food and medicine for her son’s recovery.’

Follow-up visits like Contete’s, to monitor community progress, are essential for monitoring the workshops’ impacts.

At the end of each workshop Contente surveys the group´s views on the forests, which products they most use and sell, the community’s organisational structure, and how locals think the workshop’s information will affect their lives. When he returns to these communities, Contente will use this data for further analysis to help the communities and to publish in scientific papers.

CIFOR’s local and national partners also play an important part in strengthening the capacity of small-holders to manage forests under rapidly changing conditions. For instance, at Escola Bosque, a municipal school which emphasises environmental education, students are learning how to replicate the workshops. This will help meet the increasing number of requests for assistance from forest communities. To build capacity in frontier regions, CIFOR is working with numerous partners, including the National Council of Rubber Tappers, The Federal Rural Literacy Programme, Pronera and the Amazon Institute of Agroecology (IAAM).

For Shanley, winning an award for 'Frutíferas' was an honour, but far more important to her are the positive changes that can be achieved when a book is effectively disseminated to the right communities and stakeholders.

The book’s critical success and development impact could not have been achieved without the generous support of the Overbrook Foundation, IDRC (International Development Research Centre), the European Union, and the Government of the state of Acre, with printing sponsored by GTZ (German Technical Cooperation). Institutional support came from Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation) and Imazon (Amazon Institute for People and the Environment). RS, AF

For more information please contact Romy Sato r.sato@cgiar.org