profile of personnel
National Botanical Institute (NBI)

Dr Neil Crouch
Citizenship: SA
Qualification: PhD

Experience
Neil Crouch has a PhD in Botany from the University of Natal. He has been Ethnobotanist with the National Botanical Institute (NBI) for past eight years. Current rank: Assistant Director. Honorary Research Fellow in School of Pure and Applied Chemistry, University of Natal, Durban (1998 to present). Main activities: Active research (field, marketplace and literature) on botanical diversity, and plant use by (mainly) the Zulu nation, particularly in regard to ethnomedicine. Devising, publicising and implementing conservation strategies for over- and unsustainably utilised species. Public liaison, and lectures on plants of medicinal, horticultural and agronomic importance. Project leader of the National Medicinal Plants Database for South Africa (MEDBASE). Institute builder facilitating both internal cross-directorate, and outreach programmes such as the implementation of medicinal plant displays at National Botanical Gardens throughout South Africa. Networker linking tertiary institutions with the NBI in natural products, ethnopharmacological, horticultural, conservation, bioprospecting and cataloguing programmes. Support of national initiatives to sustainably use and develop local medicinal plants, including those of the National Department of Health, Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, and Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. Currently involved in several bioprospecting consortia comprising a number of South African parastatals and universities. Postgraduate student co-supervision.

Contribution to project
Scientist in the NBI botanical component of the programme.

Ms Olwen Grace
Citizenship: SA
Qualification: BSc Hons (Natal), MSc (Natal)

Experience
Ms Olwen Grace is Assistant Bioprospecting Investigator at the Ethnobotany Unit of the National Botanical Institute in Durban. She completed a BSc in Botany and Ethno-Economic Botany at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg, followed by an Honours degree, awarded cum laude, in 1999. In 2000 she took up a research post in the Centre for Economic Botany at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom. Her MSc at the University of Natal was awarded in 2002 with distinction and received the Junior Captain Scott medal for best MSc in the plant sciences in South Africa. After further research at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, she joined the NBI early in 2003.

Contribution to project
Plant selection and project management assistance at NBI.

Prof Gideon F Smith
Citizenship: SA
Qualification: PhD

Experience
Prof Smith is Chief Director: Research and Scientific Services at the National Botanical Institute, stationed in Pretoria, and also Professor of Botany at the University of Pretoria. Prior to that, he was Deputy Director (1993–95) at the NBI. He has also lectured in the Plant Sciences Department at the Potchefstroom University for CHE (1986-92), and worked as a pharmaceutical chemist at the South African Bureau of Standards (1981–85). He currently holds the John Acocks Chair in the Department of Botany at the University of Pretoria. He was educated at the Universities of Port Elizabeth and Pretoria, where he obtained his PhD in 1991. The University of Pretoria awarded him the Hans Schweickerdt medal in 1985. He is involved in various professional associations and advisory committees, for example the Species Plantarum: World Flora Project Steering Committee, the General Committee of the International Association of Plant Taxonomists, and is member of more than 25 professional societies. Prof Smith was chairman of the SAAB Transvaal Branch in 1995 and currently serves on the Council of the South African Association of Botanists. He also served as President of the International Organisation for Succulent Plant Study (IOS) from 1998–2002, and is on the Advisory Panel of the ALL Species Foundation. He has arranged numerous international congresses, meetings and initiatives, including the first-ever multidisciplinary Global Taxonomy Workshop for Africa and the Outreach and Capacity Building Meeting of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. His research interests lie in taxonomy and floristics, particularly of southern African succulent plants, and in research leadership and management. He is author or co-author of 19 books, more than 150 research papers in scientific journals and chapters in books, more than 100 semi-scientific papers and has presented more than 120 contributions at national and international conferences, many on invitation.

Dr Maureen Wolfson
Citizenship: SA
Qualification: PhD

Experience
Obtained a PhD in Botany from the University of the Witwatersrand. Dr Wolfson is currently the Director of Research and Scientific Services at the NBI. She represented the NBI in an International Project to develop guidelines for access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing for Botanical Gardens funded by DIFID. She represented South Africa on the Expert Panel on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit-sharing which contributed to the development of the Bonn Guidelines accepted at the 6th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity. She currently serves, with representatives from the nine provinces and South African National Parks, on the National Biodiversity Working Group, chaired by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism and on the National Plant Genetic Resources Committee chaired by the National Department of Agriculture. She is the project manager of a South African national project on access and benefit-sharing, funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which will hopefully lead to regional harmonisation of legislation on access and benefit-sharing. Her present duties include the development of policies, procedures and codes of conduct for the NBI on access and benefit-sharing and Intellectual Property and assisting in the development of material transfer and benefit-sharing agreements and other agreements which relate to the access to biodiversity, particularly those related to IP. She is also responsible for liaising with and advising provincial conservation agencies on ABS matters.

Contribution to project
Scientist and responsible for IP and access to genetic resource issues within the programme.