Abstract
Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are any goods and services derived from forests besides timber. NTFPs have been consumed, traded and managed by forest-dependent peoples for millennia. Starting in the 1980s, NTFPs became the focus of a variety of conservation and development programmes that viewed commercialisation of NTFPs as a strategy to incentivise conservation of forests by improving forest community livelihoods. However, these initiatives often overlook existing local systems that promote sustainable forest management, leading to marginalisation of forest-dependent communities and overexploitation of NTFP species. To be effective, NTFP-based initiatives must understand NTFP species as cultural-ecological keystones in the management approaches of forest-dependent peoples and promote secure land rights that enable community-led conservation.
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Notes
- 1.
Swidden-fallow cultivation encompasses a variety of agricultural systems that involve clearing, cultivating and fallowing of forest landscapes. Often, swidden cultivators farm the same territory over multi-year cyclical rotations, cultivating sections of the landscape for a short time and then allowing forest to regrow in those areas for a longer time while cultivating other sections (Dove, 2011).
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Acknowledgements
Thank you to Dr. Norfaryanti Kamaruddin for inviting me to participate in this project and to the editors for your critiques that strengthened this chapter. Thanks also to Dr. Michael Dove for providing the course where I developed this research and for feedback on early drafts.
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Dyck, M. (2023). Non-timber Forest Problems: NTFPs in Conservation and Development Initiatives. In: Samdin, Z., Kamaruddin, N., Razali, S.M. (eds) Tropical Forest Ecosystem Services in Improving Livelihoods For Local Communities. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3342-4_3
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