Bernadette Montanari
- Bernadette Montanari
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Position: Consultant.
Focus (geographic): Morocco.
Focus (topics): Community-based enterprises for poverty alleviation, Biodiversity, Sustainable development and natural resource management, Medicinal and aromatic plants, Ecosystem conservation, Ethnomedicine.
Professional profile: Bernadette completed her MSc in Ethnobotany at the University of Kent in 2004, based on research in a Berber community of the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Her work identified alternative ways to commercialize medicinal plants so that benefits can be returned to the local population. She is currently pursuing research work in the same community for a PhD in Ethnobiology with a focus on community-based enterprise, natural resource management and local actors’ empowerment. Part of her work includes identification of the local resources that can be turned into financial assets for the local population, in recognition of the socio-economic and political implications for development. She is also working towards the conservation of traditional knowledge as communities integrate in market economies together with the commodification of plant products. Formerly trained as an herbalist, she has extensive knowledge in the botanical realm and has gained much experience in natural products designation and production through previous experience in business enterprises in the private sector.
Location: United Kingdom.
