THINKING beyond the canopy

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    Bonito,  Brazil,  19th  June  2012    

THINKING beyond the canopy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

www.cifor.org  t.sunderland@cgiar.org