On 3-4 September 2007, in Baoshan, China, the TUL-SEA project’s purposes, planned activities and expected outputs/impact were introduced during a two-day inception meeting. Participants came from benchmark sites where ICRAF has been engaged in various types of INRM research and development support activities. Most participants were expected to join the project with plans to test, improve and adopt the tools. On the second day, each participant shared information or experiences about their sites, the INRM-related issues and on-going activities. The workshop produced tool training and implementation plans for participating countries.

The inception meeting was followed by regional ‘training of trainers’ workshops until 8 September 2007. The training aimed to enhance the participants’ understanding about available tools and their potential application in the context of sites where the participants were working. A field visit to the Baoshan area helped to improve the ‘applicability’ of tools and approach to address the natural resource management issues. On the last day, participants prepared site level plans for implementing the tools in their context. Necessary support in terms of further training, resources and time schedules were also prepared, and improvements were identified in the tools’ documentation and training materials.