Overview

• Non-timber forest products (NTFPs): definitions; classification; production systems. Historical perspectives: hunter-gathering; commercialisation; domestication; marginalisation; resurgence.
• Management systems: design and implementation of resource assessment; harvesting rules; sustainable yields; adaptive management; involving people.
• Personal, social and economic use of forest resources and services. NTFP-based small scale enterprise development.
• Trade and markets: certification and green markets; international trade regulation; grey economies; market analysis and development; intellectual property rights
• Policy and strategic planning: law and customary rights; regulation vs. incentives; identifying priorities for intervention.

This is a distance learning module. The module materials include guided reading materials and comprehensive reading list, short Panopto webcasts and interactive discussion forums.

Learning Outcomes

• Acquire the skills to plan inventory and research on the ecology of wild forest products and to understand the process by which this knowledge can be used to derive sound adaptive management systems for such products.

• Appreciate the issues and processes that result in policy and governance systems related to the exploitation and use of NTFP's.

• Appreciate the role of NTFP use in livelihood strategies in both subsistence and commercial contexts.

• Gain an historical perspective of the development of non-timber forest products (NTFP's) as a current issue in forestry.

• Understand the structure and nature of markets for NTFPs, including the issues surrounding certification, international trade agreements and market development.