Universidad Mayor de San Andrés

1. Department. Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA), Bolivia. The Institute of Ecology is a research institute and one of thirteen institutes at the Science Faculty. Scientists and students of the Institute of Ecology have since 1978 worked with conservation and management of biodiversity.

2. Expertise. Research units deal with flora and vegetation, fauna and wildlife, limnology and wetland, and environmental quality. One of its units, the National Herbarium of Bolivia (LPB), founded in 1984, undertakes projects on the Bolivian flora, and has 200.000 collections. Its palm expertise was founded through the Palms of Bolivia program funded by several agencies including USAID, International Foundation for Science (through two grants) and others. Publications have dealt with diversity, distribution, taxonomy and uses of native palms of Bolivia. A group of 15 students has researched relationship between human groups and palm resources, and undertaken ecological evaluations of palm communities.

3. Main contributions of the team to the project: The UMSA team will lead WP6 on dissemination of the project’s results and participate in WP3, WP6 and WP5 on use and management of palms and policy issues.