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[Anual Report 96 :
Table of Contents]

Sustainable Use and Development of
Non-timber Forest Products

The project consolidated a team of people, at headquarters and outside, with complementary professional backgrounds. It also initiated activities in four new locations (Bolivia, Zimbabwe, Indonesia and Peru) while advancing a long-term commitment in some of the earlier sites (China, Cameroon and Brazil). The collaborative network of research partners is being continually extended and strengthened.

Research has gained focus, concentrating on the socio-economic importance and development potential of forests in people's livelihoods, using NTFPs as a convenient entry point. Household and community strategies related to the development potential of NTFPs are being studied in Brazil, Bolivia, Zimbabwe and China. Market studies continued in Cameroon. Preparatory field work was conducted in Indonesia on the modifications in household forest-exploitation strategies in response to logging, or new large-scale agricultural development projects. In Peru, collaboration aims to assist the National Natural Resource Institute with the development of policy guidelines for the exploitation and trade of several medicinal plants that sustain a growing national and international industry.

The methodological approaches applied include the explanation of cases, as well as the development of scenario-based models. The scenario-based models aim to link mathematical and spatial modelling techniques that, if successful, could be used as a management tool by communities and forest institutions. Both case study explanations and scenario models offer opportunities for testing the validity of some of the prevailing assumptions about people-forest interactions, or the development of new concepts.

Field work was undertaken in Karnataka and Kerala (India), Alto Jurua Extractive Reserve in Acre (Brazil), Hangzhou, Sichuan and Hunan Provinces (China), Kalimantan, Sumatra and Java (Indonesia), Riberalta (Bolivia), Lima, Pucallpa and Iquitos (Peru), and Mashvingo Province (Zimbabwe).

The project maintained the strategy, initiated in earlier activities in Sri Lanka and China, of inviting research partners to CIFOR's headquarters to carry out data analysis and general research progress discussions. In 1996 we enjoyed the presence of Professor Fu Maoyi (Chinese Academy of Forestry), Brian Belcher (INBAR) and Professor Mauro Almeida (Campinas University, Brazil). The latter presented the concept of Extractive Reserves (see page 23) to different Indonesian institutions, including to the Minister of Forests and his staff.

One of the highlights for 1996 was the completion and publication of an overview book, Current Issues in Non-Timber Forest Products Research, which synthesises much of the existing knowledge on this theme and charts a compelling course for future research.

In addition to core funding, the project continued to enjoy financial support from BMZ-GTZ (Germany) and ODA (United Kingdom).

Principal Collaborators:
Brazil: State University of Campinas;
Bolivia: El Centro de Investigacion y Menejo de Recursos Naturales Renovables (CIMAR-Santa Cruz);
Central Coastal Africa: IITA-Cameroon;
China: Research Institute for Subtropical Forestry, National Forestry Economics and Development Research Center;
Germany: Institute for World Forestry, Federal Research Centre for Forestry and Forest Products, Institute for Forest Policy, University of Freiburg;
India: University of Agricultural Sciences - Bangalore;
Indonesia: Forestry Research and Development Agency (FORDA);
Netherlands: Wageningen Agricultural University, Department of Vegetation Ecology-University of Utrecht, Tropenbos Foundation;
Zimbabwe: Institute for Environmental Studies-University of Zimbabwe;
International: ICRAF, IFPRI, International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR), IUCN.

CIFOR Project Team:
Manuel Ruiz Pérez, Wil de Jong, Neil Byron, Esther Katz, Ousseynou Ndoye, Susie Hussey, Mike Arnold, Bruce Campbell.