Balance the culture of wildcrafting with the demands of sustainable forest management. This comprehensive book documents the current use, research, and policy concerns relating to harvesting non-timber forest products (NTFPs). It provides a state-of-the-art review of historical and contemporary wildcrafting, ongoing research on economically useful forest products, and sociopolitical and environmental considerations for NTFP management. The implications of harvesting NTFPs are usually considered in the context of the Third World, but this unique book offers an analysis of current conditions in North America and integrates the historical, social, ecological, and policy aspects of NTFP use. It addresses the issues that arise when the primeval practice of gathering wild plants, fungi, leaves, and bark occurs in a post-industrial world. Non-Timber Forest Products: Medicinal Herbs, Fungi, Edible Fruits and Nuts, and Others.

There is a rapidly growing interest in, and demand for, non-timber forest products (NTFPs). They provide critical resources across the globe fulfilling nutritional, medicinal, financial and cultural needs. However, they have been largely overlooked in mainstream conservation and forestry politics. This volume explains the use and importance of certification and eco-labelling for guaranteeing best management practices of non-timber forest products in the field.

Forests cover thirty-one percent of the world’s land surface, provide habitats for animals, livelihoods for humans, and generate household income in rural areas of developing countries. They also supply other essential amenities, for instance, they filter water, control water runoff, protect soil erosion, regulate climate, store nutrients, and facilitate countless non-timber forest products (NTFPs). The main NTFPs comprise herbs, grasses, climbers, shrubs, and trees used for food, fodder, fuel, beverages, medicine, animals, birds and fish for food, fur, and feathers, as well as their products, like honey, lac, silk, and paper. At present, these products play an important role in the daily life and well-being of millions of people worldwide. Hence the forest and its products are very valuable and often NTFPs are considered as the ‘potential pillars of sustainable forestry’. NTFPs items like food, herbal drugs, forage, fuel-wood, fountain, fibre, bamboo, rattans, leaves, barks, resins, and gums have been continuously used and exploited by humans. Wild edible foods are rich in terms of vitamins, protein, fat, sugars, and minerals. Additionally, some NTFPs are used as important raw materials for pharmaceutical industries. Numerous industry-based NTFPs are now being exported in considerable quantities by developing countries. Accordingly, this sector facilitates employment opportunities in remote rural areas. So, these developments also highlight the role of NTFPs in poverty alleviation in different regions of the world. This book provides a wide spectrum of information on NTFPs, including important references. We hope that the compendium of chapters in this book will be very useful as a reference book for graduate and postgraduate students and researchers in various disciplines of forestry, botany, medical botany, economic botany, ecology, agroforestry, and biology. Additionally, this book should be useful for scientists, experts, and consultants associated with the forestry sector.

Based on information derived from literature, statistics, interviews and a field survey in Bolivia, this report explores the value of non-timber forest products not only in economic terms but also as an important element in the lives of people who live in or near the forest. Covers values at local, national and international level; intellectual property rights; ecotourism; and sustainability of exploitation with detailed examples.

This study is one in a series of activities undertaken by CIFOR to reach a better understanding of the impact of commercialisation on forest resources and what factors influence the market demand for forest products. For example, two international workshops were organized by CIFOR in 1995 and another the following year to analyse key research issues in the field of NTFP development. These workshops recognised that the process of NTFP commercialisation interacts with people’s welfare, forest management, tenure and control of resources, and forest structure and function (through ecological processes). Earlier review and analysis had generated a number of hypotheses, theories and conclusions related to the effects of commercialisation. Forest and resource tenure are likely to both affect the way a resource is managed and utilised, and be affected by changes in value due to commercialisation. Many authors have suggested that NTFP harvesting will be less damaging to biodiversity and other environmental values than management for timber. Others suggest that market pressures are likely to lead to the decline and eventual disappearance of valuable products and to severe impacts on the ecosystem. While there is a growing understanding (and acceptance) of the economic importance of forest products, especially for the poor, the potential impact of NTFP commercialisation needs to be better understood. A recommendation from the workshops was to undertake a thorough overview of the available literature to synthesise the key lessons about these areas of interaction. Such a review would critically examine the available information and analyses and identify key research areas needing further attention.