Ecoport: An essential tool

For those of you wanting to know more about where to grow and source your medicinal plants one of the first place you should go to for information is FAO's Ecoport - and it is absolutely free!

Set up by FAO in 2000 as a by product of its Global Plant Production and Protection Information System (GPPIS) Ecoport is managed by a consortium including FAO in Rome, the University of Florida (UF) and the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution (SI) in the USA. Over 90 associates and 500 editors contribute to the system.

Ecoport first went public on 1 January 2000 and by July 2001, 142,000 entity records were established, including 42,000 plants. There are over 520,000 references, many slide shows, 35,000 glossary terms, 19,000 pictures etc.

Ecoport now holds records on over 400 plants that are (also) medicinal in the Products & Uses Field plus descriptions and pictures and this will reach 500 by the end of 2001. Each entry has an owner and each contributor receives a username and password that enables contributors to write information into the shared database, much as a group of authors write chapters for a book, except that the 'book' we are writing is a public database on the Internet. This process uses methods and tools invented at FAO which allow editors (not only webmasters) to write HyperText directly.

Each contributor's shared information is displayed under a banner and logo that reflects ownership and responsibility, and we clearly demonstrated that sharing and generosity does not threaten identity.

Many of these medicinal plant records need editors. For more information contact http://www.ecoport.org.