Nutrition-sensitive landscapes was a side-event at the Int. Conference on Forests for Food Security organized by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and Bioversity International, all members of the CGIAR Consortium. Céline Termote, research assistant with Bioversity International's Nutrition and Marketing Diversity Programme, shared some of her experiences from research she carried out in the Tshopo District in the Democratic Republic of Congo on wild edible plant knowledge and use. She found that peoples' knowledge of biodiversity was not always translated into their effective use of wild edible plants. She argued for better integration of participatory research techniques: "We should put people at the centre of the landscapes approach. Food is an expression of their culture, we must not forget that, “she said. Learn more: http://liveblog.cifor.org/Event/Forests_for_food_security_and_nutrition/76707058#.UZNeGVGcnD4 Read more about Bioversity International’s work on marketing diversity for income and equity http://www.bioversityinternational.org/research-portfolio/marketing-diversity/?L=0

1. From knowledge to sustainable use of local biodiversity
A participatory approach to nutrition-sensitivity
Céline Termote, PhD
14/05/2013

2. Nutrition: who?
Need to put the PEOPLE living in the
landscape in the center
Importance of local knowledge:
• Forest/wild foods, other non-timber food
products (NTFPs)
• Landscape and forest management.
Food systems in indigenous communities
are sometimes closely linked to
cultural, social or political systems
E.g. ‘Lilwa’ socio-cultural organisation of
the Mbole, Tshopo District, DRCongo; all
interventions in the Mbole society should
be based on an understanding of this
socio-cultural institution (Kalala
Nkudi, 1979)

3. Participatory cartography -
giving local populations a voice
- How is the environment perceived by local
populations:
• What kind of vegetation do they
recognize?
• How are they named, distinguished and
why, etc. ?
- Where do people source and what foods?
• related to forest type (food availability)
• related to institutions, rules, cultural
aspects, e.g. sacred forests .
- How do forest sites, fields and fallows
evolve over time
- Discussions on how limits/boundaries are
defined lead to aspects of land tenure and
use.

4. Participatory cartography (2)
-Description of forest types (left)
-Timeline, evolution of land use over time
(under).

5. Nutrition: what?
• 925 million people are undernourished + additional 2 billion suffer from ‘hidden
hunger’
• Changing debate from quantity of staple foods (agronomists) to dietary diversity
(nutritionists)
• Forest foods can be a ‘safety net’ during food shortages, but their real potential lies in
the fact that they (could) contribute to complementing staple foods with essential
micronutrients and pharmacollogically active substances
• Landscape should provide it all: fields (food quantity), forests (forest foods and
ecosystem services), pastures, public spaces, etc.
•Linear programming using local food composition data and food prices as an
innovative tool to screen local biodiversity with regard to its potential to optimize diet
quality and reduce cost of diet.

6. From knowledge to use – barriers and actions
some findings from Tshopo District (Kisangani, DRCongo)
KNOWLEDGE : 166 WEPs (165 species and 2 varieties) within 71 botanical families
for the Turumbu, Mbole and Bali together
Tshopo District in
Oriental Province, DRCongo
Turumbu Bali
Mbole

7. 7
Dendrogram presenting the results of the clustering of the 9 villages studied (3 per
ethnic group) based upon occurence (present/absent) of the 166 WEPs
inventoried, using Ward’s Hierarchical Clustering Method.
Bafwabula 7
Bafwambalu 9
Bavoy 8
Yasekwe 2
Yalungu 3
Yaoseko 1
Yaleko 4
Olife 5
Lefundelo 6
Knowledge differs from ethnic group to ethnic group
CULTURE is important and can substantially differ within the same landscape

8. 8
USE:
• Methodology: Two multiple-pass 24h recalls per women during
period of highest WEP availability (July-October)
–241 adult women in Kisangani city, all ethnicities mixed
–129 Turumbu women in Yaoseko village
–122 Turumbu women in Kisangani city.
• Results: diets mainly based on cassava (some rice in the city)
combined with cassava leaves. Caterpillars present in about 20% of
the recalls
• Only 15 WEPs figured in a marginal number of recalls
–1 wild yam (2 recalls on a total of 984)
–2 wild nuts (3 recalls)
–4 wild leafy vegetables (18 recalls)
–3 wild fruits (10 recalls)
–5 wild spices (30 recalls).
• Safou (Dacryodes edulis), a native underutilized fruit species (semi-
domesticated) was fairly consumed in the village (30.1% of recalls)
and contributed to approx. 5% of energy intake in the village.

9. 9
Nutrient Kisangani
(n=182)
% women
under
RDA²
Turumbu city
(n=108)
% women
under
RDA²
Turumbu Yaoseko
(n=80)
% women
under
RDA²
P³
Weight (g) 1039.64 ± 275.14a 872.35 ± 271.83b 1062.88 ± 354.48a <0.001
Energy (kcal) 2102 ± 444.19a 1715.08 ± 599.57b 1779.37 ± 564.85b <0.001
Energy density
(kcal/100g)
205.47 ± 23.0 a 196.13 ± 26.21 b 169.34 ± 21.9 c <0.001
Energy from protein (%) 9.24 ± 2.13 a 9.36 ± 2.1 a 7.56 ± 1.98 b <0.001
Energy from lipids (%) 44.78 ± 5.42 46.19 ± 6.4 44.18 ± 8.06 0.0686
Total carbohydrate (g) 4 260.79 ± 64.1 a 211.71 ± 64.82a 241.62 ± 94.55 b <0.001
Fibre (g) 4 22.48 ± 8.73 17.59 ± 8.76 18.81 ± 7.56 0.4021
Vitamin A (µg RE) 4 4240.06 ± 898.37a 0 3886.47 ± 764.4b 0 4301.83 ± 768.44b 0 <0.001
Vitamin C (mg) 4 89.39 ± 23.46a 3.85 86.17 ± 29.34b 5.56 165.61 ± 74.22 c 0 <0.001
Thiamine (mg) 4 1.03 ± 0.27 a 63.19 0.95 ± 0.36 b 72.2 1.07 ± 0.41 c 61.25 <0.001
Riboflavin (mg) 4 2.07 ± 0.73 a 3.85 2.55 ± 1.88 b 7.41 2.52 ± 2.02 b 13.75 <0.001
Niacin (mg) 4 9.12 ± 2.87 a 93.4 8.08 ± 3 b 96.3 7.44 ± 2.76 a 97.5 <0.001
Vitamin B-6 (mg) 4 1.73 ± 0.51a 24.18 1.55 ± 0.43 b 31.48 2.40 ± 1.1 c 21.25 <0.001
Folate (µg) 4 219.18 ± 58.84 a 100 202.9 ± 65.88b 100 238.08 ± 86.34 c 93.75 <0.001
Vitamin B-12 (µg) 4 1.44 ± 0.58 a 93.4 1.28 ± 1.49 a 87.03 0.6 ± 0.57 b 97.5 <0.001
Calcium (mg) 4 406.23 ± 104.98a 100 384.87 ± 138.13b 99.07 541.91 ± 245.64c 95 <0.001
Iron (mg) 4 11.89 ± 3.67 a,b 100 8.93 ± 2.89 a 100 10.42 ± 4.22 b 100 0.0154
Zinc (mg) 4 6.46 ± 2.1 a 91.8 5.04 ± 1.8 a 99.07 3.89 ± 1.9 b 97.5 <0.001

10. 10
•Huge gap between knowledge and effective use of WEPs
•WEPs are insufficiently consumed to contribute to nutrition
security
•Urban nor rural people valorize their knowledge on WEPs to
complement and ameliorate their diets
•Despite they are not frequently used, there exists a lot of
WEPs in the region with interesting nutritional characteristics
such as
•Gnetum africanum; Treculia africana; etc.
What are the barriers?
What are factors that could favor sustainable consumption of forest
foods/more dietary diversity?
More knowledge necessary for other ethnic groups living in rural areas

11. 11
• Possible barriers:
• Lack of knowledge on nutritional and health properties has been cited many times
by the interviewed women
• Abundance and seasonality of species in the forest?
• Time consuming collection/transformation/preparation?
• Erosion of traditional knowledge (colonial system stressing on conventional
agricultural systems and despizing traditional use of plant medicines, etc.)
• forest food perception => food for the poor?
•Etc.
=> Needs more investigation
•Factors which might be used as incentives to increase forest food consumption:
– Knowledge is present and bioculturally defined, cultural identity
– Interesting species are present in the region
–Women were eager to know more about WEPs and their health characteristics
– Population was very proud to share their knowledge with us
=> Needs more investigation

12. 12
Some possible actions:
• Identify and embrace local values which might support sustainable
forest food consumption; nutritional education should not only be based on
sound knowledge of nutritional values of WEPs, but also be able to identify and
stimulate positive behaviour with regard to the consumption of WEPs and
dietary diversity
• Development of culturally accepted food-based dietary guidelines
including local foods and forest foods
• Participatory nutrition education and promotion of dietary diversity should be
integrated into strategies for sustainable rural development in Tshopo
District. Research into innovative agricultural models and agroforestry, based
on local knowledge and sound scientific research principles for integration of
local species into farmer’s fields and home gardens
• Home gardens are interesting places for participatory domestication and
cultivation of nutrient rich species to increase availability and access
• Promotion of nutrition-sensitive value chains
• Etc.

13. 13
Furthermore…
- Ecosystem services
- National and international policies
- Land tenure and access
- Local, national institutions
- Sustainable harvest levels and opportunity costs of forest foods
- Gender difference in access, knowledge and roles with respect to forest
foods
- Demographics & population growth
-…
Multidisciplinary teams with:
-Anthropologists, nutritionists, forest ecologists, agronomists, sociologists,
economists, ethnobiologists, value chain specialists, public health
specialists, geographers and land use planners, legal specialists, etc.

14. www.bioversityinternational.org
Thank you
Nutrition and Marketing Diversity Programme
Céline Termote; c.termote@cgiar.org