Alice Software

Plantas do Nordeste (PNE) is an Anglo-Brazilian collaborative interdisciplinary research and information dissemination programme that has been running since 1992 in the semi-arid northeastern region of Brazil. Thirty Brazilian organisations have participated in this programme. PNE, following the guiding principle of "Local plants for local People", documents reliable knowledge about sustainable management and the region's plants and helps local communities and grass roots organisations to put this knowledge to good practical use.

All PNE projects have a data management component, supported by the Sub-programme for Information Dissemination and Training (SIDT) comprising a plant information centre (CNIP), a community extension unit (AS-PTA) in Recife and an information repatriation unit at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

The Alice System plays a central role. It is used for the collation, co-ordination and dissemination of all PNE's species information. It is used to provide high quality information on north-eastern plants to forestry, agriculture, rural extension workers, communities and to many others. To date, over 20 Alice databases have been built to manage species information such as biodiversity, economic or medicinal uses and ecology. To ensure data compatibility between databases, all compiled with reference to PNE's data standards. The use of these standards minimises problems with incorporating data from different projects into centrally held and co-ordinated thematic databases.

Contact Everardo Sampaio, Co-ordinator, SIDT, DEN-UFPE, Av. Prof. luis Freire 1000, Recife, PE, Brasil 50740-540. e-mail esampaio@npd.ufpe.br

Visit the website at: www.rbgkew.org.uk/ceb/pne