Non-timber forest product
They typically include game animals, fur-bearers, nuts, seeds, berries, mushrooms, oils, sap, foliage, pollarding, medicinal plants, peat, mast, fuelwood, fish, insects, spices, and forage.
[9] NTFPs are commonly grouped into categories such as floral greens, decoratives, medicinal plants, foods, flavors and fragrances, fibers, and saps and resins.
Data and information on NWFPs is incomplete yet essential to monitor their status in the wild, their contribution to food and nutrition security and for traceability across the supply chain.
The terminology debate on NWFPs has persisted for decades, although steps have been taken to disentangle the different terms and definitions for improved forest statistics.
People from a wide range of socioeconomic, geographical, and cultural contexts harvest NTFPs for a number of purposes, including household subsistence, maintenance of cultural and familial traditions, spiritual fulfilment, physical and emotional well-being, house heating and cooking, animal feeding, indigenous medicine and healing, scientific learning, and income.
NTFPs also serve as raw materials for industries ranging from large-scale floral greens suppliers and pharmaceutical companies to microenterprises centered upon a wide variety of activities (such as basket-making, woodcarving, and the harvest and processing of various medicinal plants).
[4] Estimate the contribution of NTFPs to national or regional economies is difficult, broad-based systems for tracking the combined value of the hundreds of products that make up various NTFP industries are lacking.
[12] In temperate forests such as in the US, wild edible mushrooms such as matsutake, medicinal plants such as ginseng, and floral greens such as salal and sword fern are multimillion-dollar industries.
[13] While these high-value species may attract the most attention, a diversity of NTFPs can be found in most forests of the world, many of which remain invisible in official statistics.
A value analysis of the Amazon rainforest in Peru found that exploitation of NTFPs could yield higher net revenue per hectare than would timber harvest of the same area, while still conserving vital ecological services.
[2] For part-time (unpaid) collection of woodfuel for rural uses, women account for almost 80 percent of all labour and a significantly higher proportion than this in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean.
From June to August is the wild berry called uoi (Scaphium macropodium) collection that provides the bulk of household income.
Among the products collected are fruits, berries, leaves, mushrooms, fish, bees honey, bamboo shoots, wild orchids and the list goes on.
The Friday market is full of orchids and other wild plants put forward by these people for the tourists, both domestic and international, that flock there.
