the aromaconnection blog

Call for Support for Firefighters/Victims in Australia

United Aromatherapy Effort is helping to mobilize efforts and donations to help wildfire relief efforts throughout Australia.  Any supplies or monetary donations would be welcome.

AUSTRALIAN WILDFIRES
March 21, 2009 NEWS: CALL TO ACTION
Once again the amazing power of the internet, and all our interconnections have enabled us to network this call to Action (feel free to forward).
We are mobilizing to help out with the teams already working for the Wildfire Relief Effort. The Australian Practitioners Emergency Response Network (APERN) exists to help frontline emergency workers fulfill their duties in an emergency/critical incident and to support volunteers and victims in a caring and compassionate way. The blog: http://therapistsunite.blogspot.com/2009/03/apern-bulletin-tuesday-10th-march-2009.html. It emerged from the events of Black Saturday, the 8th February, 2009 when extensive bush fires in resulted in over 200 deaths. APERN is still in its formation stages and they are all volunteers. In addition Hands on Health Australia or HOHA http://www.handsonhealth.com.au/ aims to assist communities to improve the delivery of health and other services to marginalized people, utilizing the resource of community volunteers. They are looking at setting up 7 community clinics. At present some clinics are running and others are still in progress. Some communities around Whittlesea are only just returning to their homes to begin the rebuilding stage. There are 7000 people still homeless and living in tents, having survived one of the worst tragedies. (News links on the UAE site if you need a reminder.)
Supplies (respiratory blends, relaxation, clinic supplies like towels/base oils, etc) can be sent to Tuesday Browell (tuesdaybrowell@bigpond.com) 424 High Street, Echuca, Victoria Australia. 3564 mobile ph is.0428342957.
In addition Ron Guba/Essential Therapeutics in Melbourne is collection donations for oil supplies if you want to purchase local supplies toward the Relief effort: visit http://www.essentialtherapeutics.com.au he will see your purchase is mixed into respiratory blends, or other useful products and delivered via the above organizations. Ultrasonic diffusers would be great for the seven clinics if someone wants to contribute those, contact Sheriar Irani in Sydney www.subtleenergies.com.au
This is a great quick way we can help rather than sending our own supplies.
Thank you in advance for any support as we mobilize globally to help out when we can. Please feel free to forward this to any other lists or organizations, and other caring aromatic friends.

Sylla Sheppard-Hanger
www.UnitedAromatherapy.org

Is This The End of The Indie Beauty Products Boom as We Know It?

The past decade has seen an explosion of small, independent aromatics products companies emerge from the kitchens and basements of America.  From aromatherapy wellness products creators, indie natural perfumers,  sultry incense  formulators,  handmade soap makers and makers of bath products galore - creative entrepreneurs have conjured up myriad offerings from bath fizzies to sugar scrubs to pampering spa products. 

Then, along came the Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2008, announced last month, proposing to give the FDA authority to affect new regulations that could stop the growth of this creative movement dead in its tracks.  For some, it could be the end.  Under the new rules proposed, The FDA could mandate an annual registration fee of no less than $2,000 (possibly more) per manufacturing facility.  This could put some out of business.    

The Personal Care Products Council (formerly the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association), has already testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, outlining the self-regulatory efforts of the major cosmetic industry over the past several decades.  From the written testimony of Pamela G. Bailey, CFO and President of the PCPC,   "The result of manufacturer safety practices and voluntary initiatives under a existing framework of Federal law has been an outstanding safety record that has been commended by previous FDA Commissioners.  Cosmetics and personal care products are the safest category of products regulated by the FDA."  Stephen F. Sundlof, D.V.M., Ph.D., Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, also submitted testimony which included the following:  "We believe the proposed legislation should be more closely targeted and prioritized according to risk. Several of the legislative sections appear not to be sufficiently focused on high-risk products. Some of these requirements would divert resources, which could detract from important product safety and security priorities."   While these larger entities are not arguing for or against the proposed legislation, these seem to be cautionary statements that would lead us to believe the larger industry has faith in existing industry efforts to self-regulate cosmetic safety via the CIR (Cosmetic Ingredient Review) established by CFTA in 1976 and funded entirely by the industry, evaluating more than 1,300 ingredients and publishing peer-reviewed scientific literature, available to the public. 

We are fortunate to have Donnamaria Coles Johnson who because of her passion for cosmetics and beauty products has tirelessly championed for small beauty products companies.  If you are a small cosmetic manufacturer and are not a member of the Indie Beauty Network, you are missing a plethora of ideas, education and networking to assist your business development.  Donnamaria has put up a public page to address this latest FDA issue, open to the public for comments and suggestions.   She will be preparing a position paper, using members' comments that will carry our voice to be heard by the Committees in charge of vetting public comments.  You can find Donnamaria's message and governmental links here:  http://www.indiebusinessforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=41 

We urge all small natural cosmetic manufacturers to keep abreast of this issue and join efforts as needed to make sure that indie business doesn't get left behind.     

Organic/Natural Standards to be Discussed at Upcoming Meeting

The big players in the Beauty Products World are gathering together in New York later this week at "The Natural Beauty Summit" to "create a forum to learn and discuss the key challenges the cosmetics industry faces in the areas of natural and organic products as well as sustainability" . . . or so says the program for the conference, to be held at the Hilton Hotel in New York City May 15-17. This is a followon to a similar summit in Paris last November, to be followed by a sequel, again in Paris, in October 2008.

Sponsored by Organic Monitor and Beyond Beauty Paris, the main focus of this conference will be Natural Cosmetics with a major session on Standard & Regulatory Issues followed by a panel discussion, and the next day a Natural Cosmetics Workshop focusing on "an assessment of the growing number of standards and certifications for natural and organic cosmetics . . . [with] a critical review of the major standards, comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences between them."

The list of standards and proposed standards that will be covered at the session is:

• A Retail products standard proposed by Whole Foods
• the USDA National Organic Program Standard applied to Cosmetics
• the American NSF Standard
• the OASIS Standard
• A review of European natural and organic standards harmonization
• ECOCERT and BDIH

The aromaconnection blog will be following these issues closely as they develop.  Notably missing from the above list is the NPA (Natural Products Association) standard we blogged about yesterday and last month. We are working on a table showing details of the standards and comparing their features.  In fact, we are probably duplicating what may show up in the proceedings of the NBS (if there are any), but we hope to get it into print sooner.

Organic Monitor, one of the co-sponsors of the NBS, predicts that 2008 will be the beginning of "an industry shake-up" as various standards are unveiled in Europe and North America. In this linked article, they reference several standards that are not included on the list above. They also express concern about fragmentation that could lead to a reduction of trade, but express also the "more optimistic view" that Cosmetics might follow the lead of the textile industry and develop a harmonized global standard.

In the meantime the infighting has already begun. OCA and Dr. Bronner's have challenged what they call "weak" ECOCERT and OASIS standards, according to this OCA Press Release widely reported in the media mid-March. And as we reported yesterday, the C.A.M. Report is somewhat skeptical of the whole idea.

We can probably look forward to an exciting year!

Technorati Tags: organic standards,natural standards,cosmetic standards,NSF,OASIS Standard,ECOCERT Standard,BDIH Standard

Perfume Politics: The Oppressive Perfumer's Guild

Guilds are perhaps the precursors of modern trade unions, and also, paradoxically, of some aspects of the modern corporation.  Guilds are actually small business associations and have little in common with trade unions.  They are more like cartels in that they assume exclusive privilege to produce certain goods or services or dictate standards of a profession.  Guilds can establish restrictive guidelines or a rigid system and can exclude those who do not abide.  Guilds emerged with a similar spirit and character to the original patent systems and are not generally conducive to a democratic free flow of development and interaction.   

In the modern democracy, we have created nonprofit organizations or NGO's intended to benefit a group by collective efforts and by providing public education or  services that benefit society.  Legal nonprofit corporations receive tax relief, but are required to provide public reporting and transparency.  Such nonprofit endeavors are usually governed democratically and operated by officials periodically elected from within the membership.  This creates a structure that will evolve the endeavor into the future separate from and not dependent on or owned by any one member. 

The French Perfumer's Guild of antiquity was perhaps the worst example of the power a Guild over its members.  Established by an edict of King Philippe-Auguste in 1190 (reconfirmed by patent letters by King Jean in 1357, again by King Henri III in 1582, and again by Louis XIV in 1658, the "confrerie des Maitres Gantiers et Parfumeurs") that primarily gave glovemakers of the extended medieval period the exclusive right (i.e., monopoly) to manufacture and sell cosmetics of all types.  Why glovemakers, you ask?  Gloves were made from leather tanned using urine and other toxic and putrid substances and needed to be scented before they could be respectably worn.  The glovemakers were wealthy manufacturing businesses and they were quite adept at organized efforts to lobby each respective monarchy, reminding of the importance of their role in medieval society and thereby acquiring the sanction necessary to maintain their monopoly.  And, one can also suspect that favors were extended.  Today, we might call them bribes.  As you can see, this monopoly continued for a long time and was grounded in the necessity for perfuming what would otherwise be unusable products - leather gloves.   The corporation or guild, headed up primarily by master glovemakers,  established the sole credentials of those who could sell gloves as well as perfumed goods and dictated the kinds of products they could manufacture . . . a long list including sachets with perfumed powders, compositions used in burners for environmental scent, pomades for the hair, soap, cosmetic creams, scented gloves and even tobacco.  A quaint novelty to us today, but in common use then, was the "oyselets de Chypre."  These were cloth birds in bright colors, decorated with feathers and stuffed with aromatic powders, then placed in ornate cages and hung from ceilings or walls to add fragrance to a room.

By 1750, there were 250 master perfumers, members of the corporation who had served 4 years as an apprentice and an additional 3 years as "compagnons" before reaching the status of master.  For all intents and purposes, they were slaves, not free (until the Revolution that is) to work outside the confines of the guild or to develop their own trade and commerce.  Only rarely were there exceptions, a notable one being René Le Florentin, Catherine de Medicis's personal and favorite perfumer.  Le Florentin had a reputation for talent in creating scents and fabricating poisons!  And, obviously Catherine was well positioned to demand for him premature status.

Everything changes.  Along  came the French Revolution, rendering perfume and other objects considered frivolous luxury symbols of excesses of the aristocracy out of favor.  With the exception of popular scents like, "parfum á la Guillotine".  Under the Terror, choice of scent indicated political affiliation, a kind of odorous password.  Politically correct scents could literally save one from execution.  Napoleon's return from conquering (so he claimed) Egypt, along with his renowned heroic status gave him the power to re-establish the importance of French manufacturing to the glory of the nation.  His fondness for cologne bode well for the lagging perfume industry, establishing imperial commissions as well as scientific and technological research in organic chemistry . . . a science that would revolutionize the perfume industry in the latter half of the 1700's.   Thus, the adjective "French" is aligned with the noun "civilization" and under a new empire, cosmetic luxury products had a more general and populist allure.

One would hope that we are beyond the oppressive restrictions imposed on the medieval creative perfume artists of the day and that individuality and inventiveness are the modern dictates for his or her endeavors and acceptance.  And, that perfume guilds are fashioned after the democratic principles of modern non-profits and NGO's. 

References

Stamelman, Richard, "Perfume: A Cultural History of Fragrance from 1750 to the Present", 2006, Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.

Classen, Constance, Howes, David, Synnott, Anthony, "Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell", 1994, Routledge Press

Newman, Cathy, "Perfume: The Art and Science of Scent",  1998 National Geographic Press

http://www.wikipedia.org/

Cropwatch at the Cross-Roads

Cropwatch Statement

After 4 or 5 years of continuous activity, Cropwatch has some choices to make. Do we go on the way that we have been, snapping at the ankles of those who run & regulate the aroma industry so badly, or should we 'old dogs' learn some new tricks? Cropwatch supporters, and organisations sympathetic to our aims, regularly offer us donations and advise us of potential sources of grants, to which we have always said 'no thanks, we're non-financed'. Our current thinking is that this might be a mistake, since we are limiting our potential effectiveness. .

We are certainly not asking everyone for money, but we are asking you to help us with some feedback on how a financial input could potentially help the aroma world to become a better & fairer place, so please mail us if you have any thoughts or ideas.

Our initial list of ideas to use donated funding would be:

1. To finance risk/benefit studies on natural aromatic products. This research is needed because the existing major players such as IFRA/RIFM, are set up only to investigate the risks/hazards of fragrance ingredients (but not the benefits), & EFFA can only present the safety risks of essential oils, absolutes, resinoids etc in terms of the imagined hazards of the individual contained chemicals, rather than adopting a holistic approach for the aromatic ingredient as a whole. Therefore both organisations are badly positioned to defend natural aromatic ingredients against the current avalanche of restrictive legislation. The EU Commissioners have previously declined to accept safety-data based on risk/benefit considerations, although we believe this policy to be untenable in the long-term - it is the norm in virtually every other regulatory area (biocides, agricultural chemicals, pharmaceuticals etc).

[Neither is this just a European problem. The U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce have just announced draft legislation (Global Harmonisation Act 2008) intended to stimulate discussion on how to provide adequate funding and authority for the FDA to ensure the safety of the nation's food, drug, medical device and cosmetic supply in an increasingly globalised marketplace. The draft legislation already highlights several areas which will affect the fragrance industry]. 

2. To develop statistical data on the adverse effects of restricted & prohibited aromatic materials. This data would be a potential bombshell to blow apart the over-precautionary approaches of the cosmetic regulators and career toxicologists, who are in such a powerful position in global regulatory circles. Where this data exists (e.g. the Schnuch data on alleged allergens) it is already causing red faces. The EU Commissioner has previously indicated to Cropwatch (Brussels 2007) that this type of adverse reaction data is inadmissible as safety evidence. But if you are familiar with English history, you might recall that King Canute failed to hold back the waves and so his followers realised he was not all-powerful. So too, the regulators will not be able to ignore the fact that many restrictions on natural products are based on corporate toxicological constructs which don't manifest in the great numbers of negative health effects predicted.

3. To assist with the growing & production of useful commodities from threatened aromatic plants, for cosmetic, aromatherapeutic, flavour & medicinal outlets, in a way that benefits the poor.

4. To set up or help set up a natural aromatics products professional body, with the help of other interested parties. Already we can identify several sub-divided areas which badly need assistance: natural perfumery, the use of naturals within conventional perfumery, natural biocides, herbal drugs & medicines, aromatherapy, natural cosmetics etc. 

5. The lobbying of officials & regulators. As we have seen, the more the establishment closes ranks (and its mind) to contrary & dissenting views, the more popular support we have been able to attract. In terms of numbers we are potentially a powerful force. However we have to ask ourselves whether there is any point in continuing the lobbying game. Many of the points we make go unanswered because the officials involved are not sufficiently technically adept or experienced to even understand the arguments put forward. So is it better to plough ahead with a voluntary regulatory system of our own making - at least we might have the experience, familiarity & resources to do a better job. The enormity of the task is detracting, but this is put more into perspective if sufficient funding were to be available.  

6. To keep the flame of our traditional perfumery heritage alight. When we read that several major aroma corporations are training fledgling perfumers in pure synthetic perfumery, it makes us wonder if the world has gone quite mad. Once perfumers used to be creative artists with forthright temperaments, views and opinions, passionate about their art. Now, are we all to be reduced to company drones? I was related a story recently concerning a certain essential oils salesman who offered unmarked samples of  real good quality Bulgarian lavender oil, and a synthetic lavender construct to a group of young perfumers at a certain megacorporation. The group preferred the artificial lavender construct because "it smelled like linalyl acetate, like its supposed to."  Heaven help us! But maybe some of us 'old-timers' should organise courses & lectures to pass on the 'ancient knowledge of the art of perfumery' before it is lost forever.   

OK, after 5 or so years of trying, we pretty much know what the problems facing us are - what we don't have is a consensus on the best way to solve them. Maybe you can help?

Cropwatch Team

Technorati Tags: Cropwatch,natural aromatic products,perfumery,natural perfumery

Earth Day 2008

"The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy and sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people. We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. the rocky crests, the juices in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man, all belong to the same family. The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each ghostly reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The waters murmur is the voice of my fathers' father. The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give to the rivers the kindness you would give any brother. If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So, if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers. Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth. This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, his is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself. One thing we know: our god is also your god. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator. Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone? Where will the Eagle be? Gone! And what is it to say goodbye to the swift pony and the hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival. When the last red man has vanished with his wilderness and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left? We love this earth as a newborn loves its mothers heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children and love it, as God loves us all. As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you. One thing we know: there is only one God. No man, be he red man or white man, can be apart. We ARE all brothers after all."

      -Chief Seattle

The nature Conservancy Earth Day Ideas
Take action for climate crisis solutions at we
Recycle old computers, cell phones and other electronics
Earth Day official events and activities
Professional advice for business sustainability initiative
Earth Day Facts from Rochester, NY plus more links
Make every day Earth Day from Madison, Wisconsin
Adverse effects of palm oil by Dove from Greenpeace
We can do it! from Sierra Club
The Rainforest Initiative
Whitefeather Forest Initiative
The African Conservation Foundaton
Long list of intragovernmental, governmental and private (NGO) environmental orgs

That ought to keep us busy.

Happy Earth Day! from all of us at the aromaconnection group blog.  

Too Much Perfume may indicate Depression

Can’t smell the roses? Maybe you’re depressed. Smell too much like a rose yourself? Maybe you’ve got the same problem. Scientists from Tel Aviv University recently linked depression to a biological mechanism that affects the olfactory glands. It might explain why some women, without realizing it, wear too much perfume.

This according to research at Tel Aviv University reported in Science Daily that suggests that depressed women are also losing their sense of smell, and may use more perfume to overcompensate.

It appears that an autoimmune mechanism may be responsible:

In lupus patients and those with other autoimmune diseases, a particle known as an “autoantibody” attacks the person’s own immune system, appearing in the human body as an aberrant reaction to autoimmune diseases. This particle “is a real novelty,” says Prof. [Yehuda] Shoenfeld. “We have found that, when generated, it weakens a person’s sense of smell and can induce the feeling of depression.”

Unfortunately the original study wasn't cited. By some creative Googling, I was able to trace it back to the original press release (substantially the same as the Science Daily article) and eventually to this study published in the Journal of Autoimmunity, and to another study in Autoimmunity Reviews from 2006  that looks at the relationship between brain illnesses and olfaction. The latter study suggests that deterioration of the sense of smell may be used in the prediction of brain illnesses, and a number of other links from the abstract lead to other olfaction studies.

The Science Daily article and the press release mention the use of aromatherapy in the retail industry to change moods and encourage sales. Professor Schoenfeld suggests that this research may help change attitudes towards aromatherapy.

“I think that science is able to show that aromatherapy might not be just for quacks. After all, some of these remedies have been used since the time of the Egyptians to treat organic diseases.”

News from Cropwatch November 2007

Co-founder of Cropwatch, Tony Burfield, has been invited to give an address to the UEAPME (European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) Cosmetics Forum in Brussels on 9th November 2007, describing Cropwatch's activities in the aromatic sector, & focusing on the difficulties that SME's (micro-, Small & Medium sized Enterprises) have with the existing European Cosmetics Directive, its seven amendments and its forty or so technical adaptations to progress, with a view to its ultimate simplification. A simplification of the Cosmetics Directive was originally proposed to improve the competitiveness of industry within the EU, the world’s largest cosmetic market. However there are some signs that the EU Commissioners have been looking back over their shoulders and have seen how the Chinese cosmetics market is growing 10% year on year, a rate of expansion unmatched by the European market.   

Meanwhile Cropwatch has completed an extensive update of threatened species in the aroma raw materials trade, to be released shortly, and to be followed later by similar comprehensive review for non-aromatic cosmetic raw materials. The aroma materials review features several new areas of ecological concern, including balsams such as gurjun balsam, widely used as a fixative & cheap filler in perfume compounds. In addition we also highlight the pressure on linalol-containing essential oils by including new entries for ho wood oil, now that the market understands that the Chinese authorities are currently preventing linalol chemotypes of Cinnamomum camphora trees from being destructively harvested. This will lead to severe shortages of ho oils (as has happened several times over the last several years) or may terminate their supply completely. As your readership may guess, we can now trace a progression of ecological pressure on linalol-bearing trees, from linaloe oil produced from chipped wood of the now severely threatened Mexican Bursera glabrifolia tree (which was introduced into India). The deterioration in quality of linaloe oil around 1920 or thereabouts led to the market looking to rosewood from French Guiana as a second best choice as a linalol-containing essential oil (in spite of what you may read elsewhere!). The over-exploitation of rosewood trees in French Guiana and eventually from Brazil, lead to scarcity & together with rising oil costs, has since favoured the use of ho oils. Although ho wood oil is neither an odour  match/substitute for rosewood oil, the rectified forms of ho oil with negligible camphor content have provided a highly exploitable source of 98-99% natural laevo-linalol, often at a bulk price cheaper than synthetic racemic linalol. Where will the market go now to find natural linalol? The answer perhaps lies with more extensive production coriander seed oil from which attractively-odoured dextro-linalol is easily isolated. Unfortunately coriander seed is currently quite scarce, and therefore the essential oil is relatively expensive.

Cropwatch updates contentious areas such as animal products used in fragrances, and examines the differing interpretations of CITES meeting outcomes over animal by-products such as ambergris, as shown by national governments (e.g. Australia). We also feature a definition of natural products which includes no animal-derived materials and the key phrase "must benefit the poor". As an example of matters working in the opposite situation, we look at the Buchu oil situation in South Africa. In spite of industry trade hype and grandiose statements from SA government agencies talking up the future of SA buchu oil production, the situation on the ground has not been properly explained. Whilst the manner in which wild-gathering of buchu (which included uprooting the plant from the ground, including the roots) undoubtedly further endangered its ultimate survival, it also gave desperately needed income to S. African peoples, some 20% of whom live in total abject poverty. Now legal moves on buchu gathering (permits are required for growing & gathering) give powerful sole rights to rich farmers and prevent “buchu poaching”, ultimately endorsing an industry which has been described as “plagued by Mafia-like hierarchy and overt corruption” (Ashoton 2003). Its' hard to see how these moves can "benefit the poor", rather, as with many other valuable aroma products, the rich seem to get richer, at the direct expense of the poor.

In the update we look more intently at the sandalwood industry and Australian officials’ apparent ambitions to corner the market, & we suggest by inference that government scientists who talk-up the sandalwood oil prospects in the world markets should learn to speak in the widely understood terms which the market uses. We further update Aquilaria (agarwood) entries to CITES Appendix II listings and speculate that a new generation of young aromatic material users will only have the opportunity to experience adulterated or low grade plantation products (for both gaharu & sandalwood qualities), and that  the 'old hands' in the trade are rapidly forgetting what the 'real stuff' used to smell like. We substantiate this theory by quoting the amounts of both West African sandalwood oil and logs, and the amount of Australian sandalwood logs delivered to East Indian Sandalwood distilleries. Smell a rat anybody?

In the next Cropwatch Newsletter we also feature a presentation by Professor Jurgen Reichling of the University of Heidelberg given at the 38th ISEO Symposium in Graz in Sept 2007 entitled “External application of essential oils in animals. In addition we feature a presentation by Dr. Hassan Khalid et. al. on “Trade of Sudanese natural medicinals and their role in human & wildlife healthcare.”

Cheers,

Tony.       

EcoPort: A Biodiversity Data Base Tool

When I first discovered EcoPort:the consilience engine I was quite excited. I had discovered a tool for classifying and tracking the biological diversity of the Earth, in particular, from my interest point, the aromatic diversity. After I had explored it a bit, I began to realize that this tool has the potential for doing what I wanted, but because the database is not populated to any great degree for aromatic plants, it probably isn't as useful as I had hoped.

The database has a powerful and fast search engine that allows searching its own and several other databases. I tested it with lavender and vetiver. Searching for all entities with lavender brings a long list of animals and plants with lavender in their name; you need to limit the search to Plants.  Once you get the list of plants, you can click on a link to pictures, or to a main entry. You can then get a lot of information about the plant, its biology, its uses, etc. There are some links to other databases with additional information.

Ecoport is like Wikipedia in that it is designed for the users to enter additional information.  You need to be an editor and I get the impression that there aren't that many. To make it truly usable for aromatic plants, our community needs to organize the effort to update the database. We have our own databases that have been developed by individuals and who usually hope to be compensated for their hard work, so it may be difficult to find volunteers or public domain information to update the Ecoport database with.

If you want to find out more about this tool, you can link to their information page for a good description of the goals and purposes. But the best way to find out about it is to jump in with both mouse fingers to the entry page and then the search engine.  Browse around and try it out. Or check out the sponsors page that lists 208 organizations throughout the world that have supported or participated in Ecoport.

ICMAP

One of the projects we are working on for the blog is to catalog all the various organizations and entities that deal with the subject matter of the blog.  We've established a database for organizations and web sites and are working on filling it out. It is a work in progress and will probably never be completed as new entities are discovered and then we add the links to other organizations that are on their link sites.  Our intent is to write a series of blogs about the various aspects of the world aromatic community.  We started with regulatory agencies, both governmental and non-governmental, and started following links from them, some to others we already have in our data base, and others that branch out into entirely new areas. Today I came across entry 108, which of course will lead to another half dozen organizations from their link page, a few of which we already have but there will probably will be at least two or three new ones.  Obviously, at this rate if we wait until the list is finished (or appears finished) to start writing about the organizations, we'll never get anything written, you will never find out about all the neat things we are discovering, and the organizations will never receive the interest or (in some cases) scrutiny they deserve. So I've decided to start a series of blogposts about them as I find them.  The analysis of the interconnections will come later as we gather all the links. (As you'll see below, in the process of writing this post, I've discovered two links, without even going to their link page--which has 15 more.)

So, to start out this series of posts, that will be categorized under Organizations, I'm going to start with:

ICMAP is the INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL for MEDICINAL and AROMATIC PLANTS. Established in 1993 following the recommendation of the 1st World Congress on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants for Human Welfare (WCOMAP), on it's website the organization describes itself as:

an international non-governmental body with the name: International Council for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (ICMAP) with the general objective as promoting international understanding and cooperation between national and international organizations on the role of medicinal and aromatic plants in science, medicine and industry, and to improve the exchange of information between them.

            This Council coordinates and stimulates cooperation between partners by providing a forum for mobilizing ideas, actions, discussions, long term visions, measures in education and training in all fields related to these plants that play such an important part in the lives of human beings throughout the world.

The group is has a Secretariat in Turkey and holds World Congresses every five years.  The next world Congress on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants for Human Welfare will be will be co-organized on 9-14 November 2008 in Cape Town, South Africa (held in conjunction with the African Association for Medicinal Plant Standards).

The organization publishes a Newsletter and News Sheet which are available on their web page (enable popups and click on the dropdown to select the one you want to read or print out).

An interesting feature on the web site was this mysterious symbol.   When clicked, it leads to another interesting web site that will be the subject of the next post in this series.