Closing Workshop for Local Partnership Project of EGP-MAPS

July 14th, One of the EGP partnership projects- EGP-MAPS had its closing workshop in Beijing. The project started in, TRAFFIC together with World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies (WFCMS), WWF China Programme Office, and Wecome Pharmaceutical Ltd have implemented a project funded by the EC-China Environmental Governance Programme (EGP). The project was implemented in Hunan and Zhejiang Provinces of China but had far-reaching outcomes for beneficiaries beyond these target provinces.

The project pursued the overall objective of establishing green industry supply chains among Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) stakeholders, linking private sector manufacturers and traders in Hunan and Zhejiang Provinces to producers in order to achieve sustainable management of medicinal plants, livelihood benefits and contribute to improved environmental governance. It drew upon the principles of the FairWild Standard, an international framework guiding sustainable harvest and equitable trade of wild plants.

The project established voluntary sustainable production schemes for TCM manufacturers and traders, enabling their uptake of the best practices and facilitated the piloting of the more sustainable TCM plant supply chain. It has further supported building the producers’ capacities to manage harvesting and cultivation of TCM plant resources in a more sustainable manner, through industry leadership on supply chain management. Beyond this, the project developed a range of actions to support the development of the enabling policy environment for sustainable practices in the TCM sector, including through the development of policy recommendations at national level to promote TCM sector sustainability and best practice standards.

In the past 3 years, the project team implemented their work with industries, policy makers, NGOs and research organizations thoroughly, take the marketing tool effectively and combine it with practical policy recommendations. The project team shared its achievements to the participants have full day discussion on the project outcomes and its sustainability. Presentations include updates from the project partners, summary of project impacts, review of the policy recommendations, update from the pilot trade alliance established within the project and the CSR guidelines and roadmaps, well as updates on the FairWild Standard and the market trends for sustainable medicinal plant products.