Project Name: Yunnan Ethnobotany Study
Main Investigator(Unit): PEI Shengji (KIB), LONG Chunlin (KIB), HUAI Huyin (KIB)
Recommendation Unit: Kunming Branch, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Important scientific discoveries of the Project
1. It was the first to initiate the study work on the ethnobotany in China, which explored the academic study field of ethnobotany, promoted the development for ethnobotany within the country and produced important influences in the world.
2. It for the first time systematically catalogued the plant resources used and managed by the 16 minorities within Yunnan Province including the Dulong nationality, the Lahu nationality and the Yao nationality, which is the ethnobotany study result involving the largest minority categories and richest plant resource classifications in the country.
3. It was the first to propose the quantitative evaluation method of ethnobotany and the ethnobotany indexing system for the sustainable utilization of forest resources, and for the first time it applied Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) into the investigation work of ethnobotany, divided ethnobotany study into three stages (i.e. description, interpretation and application) and applied them into the management of natural resources and ecological system and discovery and utilization of resource plants, and also innovated and developed the methods and ways for the study of ethnobotany, which are now widely adopted by the national ethnobotany workers; it has received 4 invention patent licenses in total.
4. It put forward the ideas of "coevolution of cultural diversity and biological diversity", "the cultural diversity can promote the protection and utilization of the biological diversity" and "the ethnic cultural diversity is good for the protection of natural resources", which are widely accepted by the scholars within the field both at home and abroad and are adopted by the government decisions.
It published 63 papers (including 20 in SCI journal) and five monographs in total.