PROJECT INSTITUTIONS
Department of Systematic Botany (
The Instituto de Ecología (Department of Biology, Faculty of Pure and Natural Sciences, Universidad Mayor de San Andres,
La
Paz) was founded in 1978. It is the
largest and most important ecological research and training center in Bolivia,
and has grown during the past 25 years partly through it own internal dynamism,
but always closely related to the well established and much older Universidad
Mayor San Andrés, that is the largest university in
the capital La Paz, and also in Bolivia. The permanent staff of Instituto de Ecología consists of
24 academic positions. There are 40 thesis students and seven technicians in
eight research units: Botany, Zoology, Limnology, Soils, Environmental Quality
Laboratory, Botanical Garden,
Facultad de Ciencias Agrícolas (Universidad Nacional de Loja, Ecuador) is a
faculty in a state owned university that teaches applied sciences in agronomy,
animal sciences, forestry and administration. The project counterpart is the
herbarium that has about 25.000 specimens and is staffed with a director and a
curator and three technical staff. This herbarium has a long history, being
funded in the 1930s, and it has provided teaching in botany and local flora to
agronomy and forestry students. During the past 10 years the herbarium has
become an independent research unit that carries out projects related to
inventories, vegetation surveys, economic botany and other similar topics, and
research projects have been funded by external sources. The herbarium also host
students who carry out their thesis research for their degrees (Ing. Forestal, Ing. Agronomo). This herbarium is
the most important scientific biodiversity reference collection in southern
Departamento de
Ciencias Biologicas (Universidad
Católica del Ecuador). The university is private and its biology
department is the largest in the country with an academic staff of 30 and a
technical staff of 15. The herbarium (QCA) has about 250.000 specimens and is
staffed with a director and two curators. There are about 10 students carrying
out their thesis research in the herbarium and it functions as a major focal
point for international collaborations in ecology and botany, and is counter
part in several small and large collaborative projects of which the most
important ones are with STRI (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute),
University of Amsterdam, Turku and Aarhus (an EU-funded project on Non-Timber-Forest
Products). The herbarium and its small reference library are being consulted by an ever
increasing number of local users (companies, students researchers, public and
private organizations) who seek information on Ecuadorian plants and ecology;
approximately 300 visits by non-scientists are attended each year.
Other Danish Institutions. The Institute
of Medicinal Chemistry, at the Royal Danish Pharmaceutical University will contribute
with courses in chemo-taxonomy and secondary product chemistry, isolation and
identification. The present project will collaborate with an on-going Enreca-project based at the Section of
Forestry at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University
, aimed to strengthen capacity of forest management
particularly for timber production in the lowland forests of
Danida - Rådet
for Udviklingsforskning (RUF) Steering
Committee Dr. Mario Baudoin - Dr. Finn Borchsenius - Dr. Laura Arcos Terán - Dr. Reinaldo Valarezo García - Loja
Organization
diagram of the Institutions involved in the Enreca-project
Biodiversity and
Economically Important Species in the Tropical Andes — A Research Collaboration
between
Principal
Investigator Henrik Balslev
