The Project is focusing on medicinal & aromatic plants and other minor forest produce. The project has recently intervened in other sub sectors such as livestock and mountain agriculture to supplement livelihoods of remote communities. The project operates in selected valleys of Buner, Swat and Chitral districts. The project’s interventions link up with and strengthen mainly two categories of partners, namely partners who address social mobilization of communities and partners who provide services related to skills promotion, research and marketing. Innovative natural products are identified in the interface of offer and demand, to diversify income opportunities for poor communities. All the given means for value addition at local level were addressed, including quality production, post harvest activities and processing. More recently, the project also introduced non formal education for children and functional literacy for entrepreneurs (especially women) in selected areas. Major areas of interventions include institutional development, conservation, market promotion & value addition, policy, networking and knowledge management. Linkages of collectors with herbal pharmaceutical industries (such as Qarshi Industries) were established in order to maximize returns for collectors at source. Besides this, the project successfully demonstrated value addition in pine nuts increasing profit margin by manifolds for local communities, herbal tea and other innovations. IPRP is undertaking value chain promotion and collective marketing in pine nuts (Chilgoza nuts) in Chitral where IUCN has joined hands to address conservation aspect. The project also established close linkages with the Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Programme in South Asia (MAPPA) being implemented by International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). IPRP and ICIMOD are working on a joint project for applied research in the field of medicinal and aromatic plants with four local NGO partners in Malakand.