The European non-wood forest products (NWFPs) network intends to make available online a database of European NWFPs. A prototype of the database is already available to provide an idea of what this database might look like and by doing that to facilitate a decision on its final format to be made when the Action will be running. This database offers challenges both for the variety of products that are included within NWFP and by the heterogeneous information available amongst products. NWFPs diversity might imply that, despite a common structure is aimed for each product across the database, specific fields might be required depending on NWFP type. Concerning the unbalanced distribution of knowledge amongst NWFPs it is expected that a minimum of information to be defined will be necessary so that a product might be listed in this database. In addition, some products have already too much information to be presented in a single NWFP database description. In such cases links will be provided for other pages within NWFP network or for external sources offering more information. A list of relevant publications of each NWFP shall be also provided. When the first beta version of the database will be available details about the database structure and organisation will be posted here for an easy access to its information contents.
All current examples for demonstration purposes can be seen here. You can access the NWFP examples at the homepage or in the sidebar of most pages (see on the right). NWFPs database final format, information to be added and the most relevant criteria to distinguish European NWFPs will be only decided after the start of the COST Action.
