Vietnamese Translation

For all of you who have been patiently waiting, the Vietnamese translation of Systematics, Ecology, and Management of Rattans in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam: The Biological Bases of Sustainable Use (see Finally, It's A Book) is now available and can be downloaded here. [NOTE: Thanks to Nguyan Quoc Dung, Le Viet Tam, and the WWF Greater Mekong Program for making this happen].

In Press (Finally)

Well, it's been five months since I first posted about the rattan book (See Almost A Book), but the good news is that the third set of proofs have been corrected, all is well, and Systematics, Ecology and Management of Rattans in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam will soon be printed in Hanoi by The Agriculture Publishing House. The volume is a joint publication between the WWF and NYBG, with a generous subvention from IKEA; it will be published in English, Vietnamese, Khmer, and Lao. For me, the best part is that under the ISBN number on the back cover it says "Not For Sale". The volume will be made available to communities, researchers, development workers, and other interested parties free of charge. 

Almost a Book

I have finished most of the writing for the book that I am working on about the rattans of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam (see Lower Mekong Market Chain). Whew. Sample pages from Chapter II and Chapter III are shown above. [NOTE: I am also doing the lay out for much of the book, which will be printed in Hanoi; page shots generated from the InDesign file (.indb) for the volume].

Lower Mekong Market Chain

I am currently working on a book with Andrew Henderson (see A Palm, Two Botanists With Cameras) entitled "Systematics, Ecology, and Management of Rattans in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam: The Biological Bases of Sustainability". It's going pretty well, thanks for asking. As part of the section that I am writing now on the rattan trade, I put together a histogram that shows the value of the rattan trade in each of the three countries, how much of this actually goes to Vietnam where it is exported, and the combined production from all three countries relative to Indonesia which is the largest producer of rattan in the world.  

Couple of things to note.  A considerable proportion of the rattan produced in Laos and Cambodia goes to Vietnam. The whole region is indeed one market chain for rattan. Also, in the early 2000's, the production of rattan by Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam was a strong competitor for Indonesia. Production has notably decreased in recent years, and there is clearly a great need to manage wild stocks of rattan.

[NOTE: There are a number of caveats that apply to the data presented. Volume of rattan, rather than value, would be a more useful parameter to graph, but Laos does not report any trade data, and Vietnam records only import value. Indonesia's own data on rattan exports is significantly less than those reported by the countries that import the rattan. Grain of salt, please].