Management for Non-Timber Forest Products

NTFP constitute a very diverse group of plants and animals. Extraction may involve the entire organism, as in the case of hunting or the collection, of only parts, such as feathers, tubers, leaves or nuts. Each of these requires a different management approach and each has a different scope for sustained harvest. Impacts on populations and the forest ecosystem range from very destructive to very minor. For instance, natural stocks of one of the major tropical NTFP, rattan, are declining and sustainable management of natural populations is reportedly difficult. On the other hand, even though Brazil nut, another major tropical NTFP, is largely harvested from wild populations, its management does not lead to widespread decline of the resource, and it provides an income to a large number of people. This is associated with the fact that only the fruits are harvested and the trees are left undamaged.

In essence, management of NTFP should take into consideration the same general principles as management of timber, even though the socio-economic context of NTFP may differ in many cases. An important difference with many (industrial) timber-harvesting operations on owned or leased land is that issues of security of tenure are often less well defined. NTFP collection often occurs in communities with uncertain rights to the land from which the NTFP are derived and to the resource itself. Sustainable management of NTFP should therefore emphasise tenure and ownership aspects. A well-known example is the concept of extractive reserves, which form a management approach that is exclusive to NTFP in the context of sustaining livelihoods of forest-based people. The Brazilian Extractive Reserves are collective long-term land-use rights given by the government to whole communities of forest-based people. The first extractive reserve was created in 1987 for rubbertapper communities in the Brazilian Amazon. It has been established that forest conversion rates in extractive reserves are indeed much lower than outside the reserves. However, extractive economies are notoriously unstable, and therefore cannot guarantee that residents will not destroy the forest to meet short-term needs once the conditions change. In the case of the rubbertappers, the global rubber market collapsed and the tappers have moved to a more agricultural lifestyle. This highlights that security of tenure alone will not guarantee sustainable rural development or sustainable NTFP management.

In many cases, dedicated management of (plant) NTFP for markets will imply their cultivation outside forests, a practice that may be contrary to the purpose of NTFP as a tool to promote forest conservation while providing sustainable livelihoods. Often, projects on NTFP management are integrated in community development projects, as NTFP are seen as a relatively sustainable way to provide goods or income from the forest.

TBI sources

Tropenbos (1999). Seminar Proceedings: NTFP Research in the Tropenbos Programme: Results and Perspectives Wageningen, 28 January 1999

Valkenburg, J.L.C.H. van (1997). Non-timber forest products of East Kalimantan; potentials for sustainable forest use

More TBI publications on this subject

Further reading:

Rattan management (FAO)
Brazil nut management
Analysis of extractive reserves (CIFOR)