Goals and objectives:

The Biodiversity, Conservation and Training Associate Program (previously called Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, and Training Associate Program), addresses many of the explicit goals of the ICBG project: pharmaceutical discovery and human health, scientific capacity building, and economic development, and conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems. BCTAP is both an independent program in biodiversity, conservation and training, and a service program to provide necessary training for the other associate programs.

The countries of Central Asia face imminent, extreme threats to the environment and human health. Ecosystem degradation is rampant to the point that many natural ecosystems and their organisms are under immediate threat of extinction. Through collaboration and education of policy makers, scientists, and students we address this in workshops and courses on applied conservation, benefit-sharing, intellectual property, biodiversity discovery and sustainable land management.

Objectives:

Exchange and sharing of knowledge: Initiate a scientific exchange and training program with Central Asia for increased communication and sharing of scientific knowledge.

Intense, short-term courses: Topics include: Biodiversity documentation, Medicinal plants and good botanical practices, Conservation and Biodiversity documentation, Intellectual Property Rules and benefit-sharing.

General Public: Disseminate research results to increase awareness of natural products, their origin, and the necessity of conservation.

Visiting Scientists and Scholars: Research exchange for scientists and students for short-term specialized training.

Postdoctoral training: Provide training in database development, scientific training education, and biodiversity and conservation studies.

This program is also responsible for the maintenance and training of NAPIS database-related activities. All organismal and soil samples, their collection information and screening results, are entered and stored in a dedicated database as mandated by the grant program.

Results:

Since 2002, ICBG Central Asia has arranged a multitude of workshops, training courses, lectures and NAPIS database training in Central Asia (see table), on the topics outlined above.

Table 1. ICBG Central Asia Short-term training 2003-2008 and number of participants per country.

	Kazakhstan	Kyrgyzstan	Tajikistan	Uzbekistan	USA	Total:
ICBG Workshops	2	1	2	0	3	8
ICBG Training courses	5	56	0	115	4	180
ICBG Distinguished lectures	0	175	0	435	4	614
NAPIS training	4	10	4	26	14	58
Total:	11	242	6	576	25	860

Long-term training included research by and mentoring of undergraduates, graduates, and postdoctoral scholars and is summarized in table 2.

Table 2. Long-term training within ICBG Central Asia 2003-2008, by category and country.

	Kyrgyzstan	Uzbekistan	USA	Total:
undergraduates	19	36	8	63
graduate students	0	12	2	14
postdoctoral	0	0	9	9
technicians & staff	8	0	5	13
faculty/scientists	21	6	2	29
Total:	48	54	26	128

As of October 2008, samples had been collected from 615 collection localities, and a total of 1630 plants (1269 species from 32 ecosystems), 210 soil samples for isolation of microorganisms, and 1185 fungal isolates from plants had been collected in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The NAPIS database included 384 778 records of bioassay activity results. Herbarium vouchers from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have been distributed to Illinois Natural History Survey (ILLS) and Missouri Botanical Garden (MO) for permanent incorporation in their collections.

Central Asia is home to a large array of different ecosystems with many endemic species. Many of these unique species and ecosystems are under severe threat of extinction. Some areas are protected, but resources to enforce the protection are often lacking. The three country-specific action plans, developed during our workshop at Yellowstone National Park in September 2007, highlighted these issues and provided constructive plans that are being partially implemented here as part of ICBG.

Future plans:

We will provide training and capacity building using workshops, training courses, on-line educational tools, hands-on training in the field, coauthoring of journal articles and information brochures, seminars, undergraduate and graduate research experiences, postdoctoral and faculty skills enhancement, and development of collaborative international subprojects. Efforts within BCTAP will encourage broad involvement in program development and delegation of responsibilities to the local level for logistics, final program, and local speakers for Central Asia activities.

Planned workshops, courses and other activities:
Intellectual Property Rules, Protected Area Management, and Benefit-Sharing
Bioexploration, Biodiversity Documentation and Conservation Research
Good Agricultural and Collection Practices for Medicinal Plants
Providing data for GBIF and digitization of collections
International Training Program in Medicinals, Botanical and Aromatic Plants

Screens-to-Nature and NAPIS database training will be given as short courses with extensive hands-on experiences for all participants. Such courses have already been successfully given in Botswana, Ecuador, South Africa and Tanzania as part of the GIBEX (www.gibex.org) program.

Resources for maintaining protected areas or to protect non-protected areas are scarce in Central Asia. Throughout the project we will analyze our conservation efforts on a local scale, and in partnership with each of the source countries (public and private sector and NGOs) develop models for local and regional sustainable economic development of their targeted indigenous genetic resources, and promote the development and follow-up of local action plans. In this work we will utilize and develop the conservation action plans for each country that was developed at the YNP workshop in 2007.

We plan to arrange ecotours in all three countries in collaboration with local scientists and the associate bioexploration program GIBEX (www.gibex.org). These tours will be led by scientists and focus on active learning and experiences in local ecosystems, to provide a better understanding of exploration methodology, preservation, and restoration of nature. It is our goal that these tours would also include active research components that will be valuable for biodiversity inventories and conservation assessments.

Collaborators:
Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan (ACBK, www.acbk.kz)
Illinois Natural History Survey
North Carolina State University