Forests and non-timber forest products

Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are any product or service other than timber that is produced in forests. They include fruits and nuts, vegetables, fish and game, medicinal plants, resins, essences and a range of barks and fibres such as bamboo, rattans, and a host of other palms and grasses.

Over the past two decades, governments, conservation and development agencies and non-government organisations have encouraged the marketing and sale of NTFPs as a way of boosting income for poor people in the tropics and encouraging forest conservation.

Understanding NTFPs and people

NTFPs are used and managed in complex socio-economic and ecological environments. In traditional forest communities, many NTFPs may be used for subsistence while others are the main or only source of income. Some NTFPs have significant cultural value, as totems, incense, and other ritual items. Others have important medicinal value and contribute to the community’s health and well-being.

But as forest areas shrink, human populations grow, markets change, and traditional management institutions lose their authority, the sustainable production of many NTFPs is no longer assured. For example, as international rattan prices increased in the 1980s and ‘90s, commercial companies in Asia hired local people to harvest available resources. Widespread over-exploitation resulted and in many places the resource was destroyed, affecting the local biodiversity and leaving the people without an important source of income.