BackgroundCommunity-based approaches to conservation of natural resources, in particular medicinal plants, have attracted attention of governments, non governmental organizations and international funding agencies. This paper highlights the community-based approaches used by an Indian NGO, the Rural Communes Medicinal Plant Conservation Centre (RCMPCC). The RCMPCC recognized and legitimized the role of local medicinal knowledge along with other knowledge systems to a wider audience, i.e. higher levels of government.MethodsBesides a review of relevant literature, the research used a variety of qualitative techniques, such as semi-structured, in-depth interviews and participant observations in one of the project sites of RCMPCC.ResultsThe review of local medicinal plant knowledge systems reveals that even though medicinal plants and associated knowledge systems (particularly local knowledge) are gaining wider recognition at the global level, the efforts to recognize and promote the un-codified folk systems of medicinal knowledge are still inadequate. In country like India, such neglect is evident through the lack of legal recognition and supporting policies. On the other hand, community-based approaches like local healers' workshops or village biologist programs implemented by RCMPCC are useful in combining both local (folk and codified) and formal systems of medicine.ConclusionDespite the high reliance on the local medicinal knowledge systems for health needs in India, the formal policies and national support structures are inadequate for traditional systems of medicine and almost absent for folk medicine. On the other hand, NGOs like the RCMPCC have demonstrated that community-based and local approaches such as local healer's workshops and village biologist program can synergistically forge linkages between local knowledge with the formal sciences (in this case botany and ecology) and generate positive impacts at various levels.

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medicine, with a systematic codified body of knowledge either in the form of pharmacopoeias or ancient scriptures [ayurvedic, Chinese and Tibetan medicine, siddha, unani (Arabic), etc.]. The WHO (2002) defines traditional systems of medicine (TSM) as 'the diverse health practices, approaches, knowledge and beliefs incorporating mainly plants and plant products with or without spiritual therapies transmitted through generations by oral means to maintain well-being, as well as to treat, diagnose or prevent illness; (ii) Traditional medicinal knowledge or folk medicine (TMK), which is transmitted by oral means and is mostly acquired through learning-by-doing approaches, and (iii) Shamanistic or spiritual medicine, which has a strong religious/spiritual element and can be practiced only by highly specialized local experts called shamans.Our concern here is with TMK practices and beliefs as they relate to plant-based medicines and that are transmitted by oral means. TMK associated with plant use is most widely practiced in South Asia (Shankar 1999, Shukla & Gardner 2006 AbstractTraditional medicinal plant knowledge (TMK) helps meet the health needs of a large section of the world's population, especially socially and economically disadvantaged and aboriginal communities of developing countries like India. However, there is little known about TMK skills and their intergenerational transfer and growing concerns over the erosion of TMK within these communities. Through indepth interviews with 33 practicing village healers from two remote and economically poor villages of Western India, we identified a set of ten crucial TMK skills and their relative importance. We then interviewed 27 young budding healers from the same villages to establish their views on crucial TMK skills. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the differences in importance that old and young healers attach to TMK skills. We found that old and young healers significantly differ on ascribing importance to five crucial TMK skills, including: interest, identification, rare plants, consultation and harvesting. It was discovered that such differences in perception of old and young healers about critical TMK skills can be attributed to lack of interest by young healers in learning some TMK skills, complexity of the skills, incomplete transmission (due to stricter adherence to transmission rules by old healers) and the impact of formal schooling and modern medicines in generating negative values among young healers towards learning new TMK skills. Traditional Medicinal Plant KnowledgeWorld Bank estimates indicate that more than eighty percent of the population of South Asia uses plant-based medicines for maintaining and improving their health (Nickel & Sennhauser 2004). These community-based, or local uses of medicine, can be classified broadly into the following three categories according to the knowledge base that underpins them (Hamilton 2005): (i) Traditional systems of

Self-organization is a key condition to the success of community-based conservation initiatives, including those recognized by the Equator Initiative of the UNDP. This paper contributes to emerging scholarship that focuses on community-based conservation in South Asia and in particular examines self-organization strategies within a small-scale community-based conservation initiative in a cross-cultural setting to further understanding about how such initiatives originate, sustain and grow. This is achieved through a case study of the Baripada Forest Protection Initiative in India by utilizing in-depth interviews and focus groups. In addition to certain often-cited strategies for self-organization, the Baripada initiative included unique features of self-organization such as village community design, implementation and adaptation of rules for local natural resources use and conservation, little need for financial support, and significant mobilization of human resources. These strategies, along with emerging social learning opportunities (e.g., a community plant diversity register) inspired by the Baripada initiative, inform and enrich the criteria for designing and evaluating conservation and development initiatives, irrespective of their scale.