The summary of time costs is as follows:
•
Twenty to 30 species can be photographed per day in a best case scenario; in reality, around one species per day is achievable (remember to account for travel time).
•
The 128-species guidebook took 30 days to format.
•
It also took 30 days to test.
•
In total, a 128-species guidebook took 120 + 30 + 30 person days = 180 person days.
Time taken for an illustrated guide, Grenada
Caribbean Spice Island Plants was a book with a difficult remit – decidedly non-technical –
since it has to be usable, to some extent, by older schoolchildren and a broad range of eco-tourists. However, it also has to inform Grenadian forestry and ministry staff of endemic
44 Plant Identification
and other important plants. The first phase was not directly aimed at making a field guide, but at collecting illustrations for testing formats as a research exercise. The fieldwork of gathering specimens and creating illustrations of 100 Grenadian species involved collecting and photographing a larger set of about 300 species in order to allow a fair sample size within which to establish priorities. This took three people with almost no previous experience of the flora about 60 working days (equating to 180 person days; however, it might have been done in 75 hours by just two of us, i.e. 150 person days). Most species were collected more than once during different seasons. These plants were easier to collect and photograph than the Ghanaian trees because we were including common small forest plants. The island is much smaller than the forest zone of Ghana, and there was less need to hunt for plants in suitable lighting conditions and with a good display form.
Rosemary Wise, our artist, meanwhile, could draw around five fairly simple line drawings of specimens per day, or do two to three simple paintings. Note that artists vary considerably in productivity, and Rosemary is particularly quick. All 100 specimens could, in principle, be photographed or scanned in a day. The Grenadian species were illustrated only on A6 cards (the size of a postcard or a typical family photograph) for our tests, and an average formatting time would be equivalent to the Ghanaian example.
The summary of time costs for phase 1 (research to compare illustration usability) of the Grenada example is as follows:
•
Collecting and photographing 100 species in three formats for testing took 180 person days (by inexperienced staff) over several seasons, making duplicate photographs.
•
A faster than average illustrator could create four simple line drawings per day or two to three simple paintings.
•
Formatting and testing took 60 person days for the main researcher, as well as the time of numerous ‘almost-volunteer’ testers and volunteers being tested. One test with two to four participants trying three formats and twenty species took about one invigilator an hour. Invigilator time is therefore about 100 hours for 300 tests, or 6000 plant trial identifications. If we added all of this time, as well as the time unaccounted for waiting for participants, good weather, etc, the total would approach three times this figure.
•
In sum, production and testing (of about 300 people) of three formats of A6-size illustrations for 100 species took 180 + 25 + 50 + 60 person days = 315 person days, as well as at least 100 hours of casual labour, and more than 300 hours from volunteers.
Grenada phase 2
The time taken subsequently to format and publish a field guide using illustrations and lessons from phase 1 consisted of the following:
•
Collecting, identifying and photographing extra plants (about 450 more species, using only photographic illustrations) by myself and a field assistant to bring the book to 740
species took 95 person days. Productivity was much more efficient due to experience, better knowledge of the flora, and the focus on taking photos for the guide book, not for ‘format research’.
•
Library research for textual information and historic illustrations, as well as adding species, editing and initial formatting of the basic text, keys, introduction and contents, for a circa 350-page book (primarily by one person) took 155 person days.
•
Copyediting, final layout and other publication tasks took ten days.
•
Printing took approximately one month.
•
In sum, phase 2, minus printing took 260 person days.
Planning and budgeting 45
The estimated total time to produce a circa 350-page 2000-picture field guide completely
‘from scratch’ (including training field assistants), in a country with no herbarium, to camera-ready copy ready for printing was 315 + 260 = 575 person days (that is, a team of two botanists, as well as one assistant or artist, working for a whole year). Phase 1 overesti-mates the essential time required since we were preoccupied with obtaining testing results for interest beyond the Grenadian guide. However, this was compensated for by the time taken (and not accounted for) identifying specimens. Note that this guide is explicitly a
‘picture guide book with interesting notes’. Field guides to 750 species normally take much longer to produce.
Discussion
In terms of fieldwork costs, and not counting the time taken to arrive within the geographical area covered by the field guide, one can assume that averaged over 100 species or so, one should plan for an average of about one person day’s fieldwork per species included in the guide if two people are working together and the guide is to be based on photos of fresh plants. It is always better to work in pairs, with one person collecting specimens and the other photographing, easily halving the total time taken. The incremental advantage of a third person is less marked, and a team of five or more definitely represents ‘too many cooks’. So, assume an average of only two species per team day of work, averaged over many species – regardless of how many photographs you think you can snap in a day!
The big difference between the Grenada and Ghana guide preparation task was not so much fieldwork, although that is certainly easier in the tiny country of Grenada, but the greater time taken in Grenada to identify the species and come to grips with the flora, as none of us had any extensive botanical knowledge of the area. Some species could be identified in a matter of minutes with the Flora of the Lesser Antilles, mainly due to prior knowledge of families and genera, or occasionally by using a local name that was correctly listed in the Flora. However, the majority of species take much longer than a few minutes to identify, with perhaps 10 per cent taking more than two hours to identify, spread out over years (several specimens still remain unidentified). It may also be necessary to add the time taken for trips to distant herbaria. Often one can discount some of these time factors since specimen identification or a herbarium trip might have been part of the field guide author’s normal work anyway.
Conclusion
Budget for an average of one to two species per day for a botanically minded person, as well as a field assistant and occasional help from an artist, to produce basic but usable field guides to hundreds of plant species with limited textual information for regions where the flora is reasonably well known, such as West Africa and the Caribbean. Add to this your own estimate for researching and writing the other textual information that is to be added to the guide, and about one month per 100 species at the end to convert a completed manuscript into a polished publication. Corners can be cut to produce reasonable picture-based guides at the rate of two to four species per person day. More detailed guides, requiring substantial research per species, might easily decline to a rate of one species per month; so consider the implications of incorporating additional data carefully.
46 Plant Identification
Year 3
1234
AN) and the Centro
Year 2
1234
argas and Jordán
, 2003)
Year 1
1234
Quarter
T) in preparing a community field guide (V
ropical (CIA
, scientific name, common name, text, illustrations, etc.) An example of an activities calendar used by the Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza (F
Internacional de Agricultura T
able 3.4 T
Activity
Planning the field guide
articipatory selection and prioritization of species to include in the guide articipatory identification of diagnostic characters for the selected species Meetings to initiate planning of the guide
Define the user groups and their needs
Consult users and identify needs
Establish agreements with local groups on documentation of local knowledge and production of the guide P
Define content of the guide (family
Prepare an action plan with user groups and institutions Coordinate activities with communities and other personnel Preparing the field guide
Analyse and organize existing information, the quality of botanical information and access to information Meeting to map and characterize the vegetation, and plan the transects with key informants from each community Review scientific names and additional information on selected species Review the literature and other sources for additional information about selected plants Collect botanical specimens and verify identification Field walks with key informants to identify species and start collecting information Interviews to collect more detailed information about species from key informants in the community P
Take photos of the whole plant and of parts of the plant to scan, and find existing illustrations for the field guide Commission illustrations for initial testing with users Define distinct morphological descriptors, uses and management of selected species Define necessary indexes and other access methods with users Define indicators for participatory evaluation of the field guide Prepare descriptions and/or diagnostic characters for each species (seek the participation of local users)
Planning and budgeting 47
, and complete the illustrations based on feedback from field testing and availability of new illustrations alidation workshop to test usability and to evaluate the draft guide with user groups ublishing and disseminating the field guide
ublish final guide
Prepare preliminary draft of the field guide
Complete field information with key informants: ethnobotanical data, characteristics of the plants and ecosystems Testing the field guide
Test different types of illustrations with users
Modify
Define the required illustrations for the guide based on results and test the availability of existing illustrations Modify activities according to the conclusions of evaluating the guide Communicate the results of the validation exercises to the community Modify the guide according to the conclusions of the validation exercise Test the keys and tools with users
Communicate the results of the validation/evaluation exercises Complete the list of scientific names of included species V
Communicate the results of the validation/evaluation exercises Write indexes, introduction and glossaries, if necessary Prepare a second draft of the field guide
Evaluation workshop to test the whole guide
Communicate the results of the validation/evaluation exercises Make the adjustments and changes requested
P
Define content of the text and the level of detail of the information for publication Organize the content of the text, format and detailed information for publication Layout the final guide
P
Send copies of the field guide to tourist agencies, the national institute of tourism and community members
48 Plant Identification
CASE STUDY 3.4 SELECTION OF SPECIES AND DISCUSSIONS ABOUT
THE CONTENT FOR A GUIDE TO USEFUL PLANTS IN
BAJO PARAGUÁ, BOLIVIA
This guide (Vargas and Jordán, 2003) was prepared in the same area as the guide for eco-tourists described in Case study 3.1, but instead of being targeted at tourists in the PArque Nacional Noel Kempff Mercado it was developed by the indigenous communities living around the national park, both to preserve their knowledge and to produce an attractive product that they could sell. The planning process was therefore much more participatory.
It involved the following steps:
•
The initial list of plants was drawn up during the first workshop.
•
Information was then gathered about the plants from field trips and individual interviews with key informants.
•
Based on this information, a list was transcribed onto cards of the plants that were named most frequently and that had the most important uses.
In participatory workshops in each community, we defined the species to be included.
Before generating a list of plants, we talked about some criteria for their selection, which were:
•
multiple-use species – in other words, those species that have several important uses;
•
species that were mentioned most frequently as having one or more important use;
•
species that are present in the community or in neighbouring zones, or that are currently used or valued (preference was given to these species);
•
other species that are considered very important in medicine, nutrition or construction, even though their habitats are not close to the community.
During the workshop we asked participants to nominate the species that they considered most important for inclusion in the guide. As a result of this exercise we obtained a list of 25
to 30 plant species. Whenever we noticed that participants were having difficulty in remembering more names, we turned to the cards with the list of plants nominated most frequently in each community. On reading out the names, participants decided individually whether they accepted or rejected the plant, and so the initial list was duplicated, which resulted in an important collection of species covering a wide range of local uses.
Consultations about the content
Defining the content of the guide to useful plants was carried out after collecting the preliminary information for two reasons: to decide what information is available about each species and whether it should be included; and to improve our understanding of the guide’s group of users and their needs.
An initial activity of the project was to show users examples of existing guides and books on various plant-related themes. This activity was very important because the users clearly preferred some of the books and relied on them to inform their decisions about format, size, content, keys and illustrations, in this way developing their own guide.
Based on the content of other guide books to nearby areas of Bolivia that the users had examined, we prepared a draft outline of our guide’s subject matter. When defining and presenting the content to workshop participants, two key questions emerged:
Planning and budgeting 49
1
What information do we want to include for each plant in the guide?
2
How should we organize this information and what order should we present it in?
In order to standardize the guide’s format, it was necessary to focus on the aims of the guide, the seasons of the year, the way in which the vegetation is classified, the selected species and suitable illustrations.
First, the suggestion of arranging the species in order of common name was accepted.
After presenting and discussing initial ideas about the content, we then made some adjustments, and participants agreed and accepted the following content for the description for each species:
•
Characteristics of the plant. This refers to a description of the plant’s form (herb, tree, shrub, palm, bamboo, etc.) and includes the size in metres or its behaviour. It the
n briefly describes the characteristics of the stem, bark, leaf, flower and fruit, highlighting characteristics that are important for identification in the field and noting if there are any similar plants that may be confused with it.
•
Where does the plant grow? This describes the plant’s preferred habitat and whether it is abundant or scarce within the area.
•
Season of flowering and fruiting. This covers leaf form or reshooting (or whether it is evergreen).
•
Uses of the plant. This briefly describes the uses of the plant according to categories –
for example, medicinal, nutritional and timber (we tried to adopt a symbol for each of the principal categories).
•
The part used and the way in which it is used. This mentions the use of the complete plant or its parts (root, stem, bark, leaf, flower, seeds and fruit) and the way in which the plant is prepared or exploited.
•
Additional information about the species. This covers taxonomy, which refers to the taxonomic classification of the plant (scientific name and family); information about uses in other places; and complementary information from the international literature which is relevant to the zone.
BOX 3.4 CHECKLIST OF COSTS
Below is a list of costs that should be considered when drawing up a budget for your project:
•
materials;
•
time needed to collect information;
•
time needed to collect and identify specimens;
•
fuel/transport – the number of field trips required to collect information and specimens;
•
computer, printers, software;
•
illustrations: the number of species required to illustrate, multiplied by the cost per illustration;
•
time needed to write, rearrange and edit the material;
Plant Identification Page 9
