Non-timber forest products have been hailed as a ‘silver bullet’ for sustainable development and forest conservation, because of the significance of forest products as both food and income for rural dwellers, but evidence from this presentation’s core study suggests that harvesting of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) is failing to meet goals for combining conservation and poverty alleviation. NTFPs can have a role in rural livelihoods, especially through multiple-use sustainable forestry projects, but these require long-term investments and complex co-management approaches. CIFOR scientist Terry Sunderland gave this presentation at the 49th Annual Meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation, held in Bonito, Brazil on 19 June 2012.

1. Non-timber forest products and conservation:
what prospects?
Terry
C.H.
Sunderland,
Ousseynou
Ndoye
and
Susan
Tarka
Sanchez
49th
Annual
Mee-ng
of
the
ATBC
THINKING beyond the canopy Bonito,
Brazil,
19th
June
2012

2. This presentation…
§ Sunderland, T.C.H., S. Harrison
& O. Ndoye. 2011. NTFPs and
conservation: what
prospects? In: S. Shackleton,
C. Shackleton & P. Shanley
(eds) Non-timber forest products
in the global context. Springer-
Verlag, Berlin.
THINKING beyond the canopy

3. Summary
§ NTFPs hailed as “silver bullet” for sustainable forest
conservation
§ Many conservation interventions still rely on NTFP
“development” for alternative livelihoods
§ However, evidence suggests that the NTFP/conservation
linkages are tenuous
THINKING beyond the canopy

4. Brief history of NTFP/conservation
paradigm
§ Colonial expansion led by novel
forest products that became
agricultural commodities
§ “Boom and bust” nature of
production systems often
characterised by elite capture
and exclusion (Homma 1992;
Dove 1993)
§ Revisionist “Rainforest Harvest”
theory of 1980’s, led in part by
“extractive reserve” model
where high value forest products
and established markets
coincided
THINKING beyond the canopy

5. NTFP’s and rural livelihoods
§ Significant value of forest
products to rural dwellers and
often keystone of food and
nutritional security
§ Often provides only means to
access cash economy
§ Recent global study suggests
that one fifth of rural income is
derived from forest products
(CIFOR’s Poverty and
Environment Network)
THINKING beyond the canopy

6. Is NTFP harvesting sustainable?
§ It depends….
§ Factors to consider: tenure, plant part
harvested, intensity, long-term
management and monitoring
§ Unfortunately, very few examples
where sustainable management of
individual resources have taken place
in the context of the individual
resource and wider ecosystem
§ Even high value forest products (e.g.
Prunus africana) are harvested
without a basic understanding of long-
term impacts of exploitation
§ Very little investment in sustainable
multiple-use forestry: co-management
THINKING beyond the canopy

7. NTFPs and protected areas (PA’s)
§ Exponential increase in PA’s globally (now 11.5% of terrestrial
surface)
§ 8.4% of land area are IUCN I-IV classifications, thus annexed
from human use (conflict and non-compliance)
§ Clear advocacy for “wild nature” over sustainable use
§ If NTFPs and conservation are compatible, why is this the
case? THINKING beyond the canopy

8. Transition from natural forests to
“domestic” forests
§ Low density of NTFPs in natural forests
§ Transition from “nature to culture” (Dove 1995) and
anthropogenic landscapes
§ Domestic forests (e.g. peri-urban forests of Belem
(Brazil) or rubber agroforests of Sumatra (Indonesia))
§ Simplification of production systems
§ Thus NTFP extractive systems not reliant on biodiversity
per se
THINKING beyond the canopy

9. Constraints to NTFP contribution to
biodiversity conservation
§ Estimates of non-timber “value”
greatly over-exaggerated (c.f. Peters
et al. 1989, Nature)
§ Commercialisation often leads to
appropriation and depletion
§ Increased demand + resource
scarcity = cultivation or substitution
§ Thus “value” of biodiversity-rich
forests is reduced
§ NTFP-based income often part of the
informal forestry sector; the “hidden
harvest” (Laird et al. 2010)
§ Erosion of traditional knowledge
§ Lack of tenure
THINKING beyond the canopy

10. PEN: A global study of NTFPs
§ 25 countries
§ 36 PEN studies
§ 239 households in the average study
§ 364 villages or communities surveyed
§ 2,313 data fields (variables) in the average study
§ >10,000 households surveyed
§ 40,950 household visits by PEN enumerators
§ 294,150 questionnaire pages filled out and entered
§ 456,546 data cells (numbers) in the average study
§ 17,348,734 data cells in the PEN global data base!
THINKING beyond the canopy

11. Value of NTFPs to livelihoods?
§ NTFPs classified as “safety nets” but sometimes as
“poverty traps”
§ Not a pathway out of poverty
§ Agriculture and off-farm income more attractive than forest
product harvesting alone
§ Thus further disassociating integrated conservation and
livelihood functions
THINKING beyond the canopy

12. In summary
§ Links between NTFPs and biodiversity conservation have
been based on simplistic assumptions and generalisations
§ Further hindered by separation of protection and
sustainable use
§ Multiple-use sustainable forestry requires long-term
investments and complex co-management approaches
THINKING beyond the canopy

13. www.cifor.org
t.sunderland@cgiar.org
THINKING beyond the canopy