Economic Significance of Non-Timber Forest Products as a Sustainable Source of Rural Livelihoods

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Human societies derive many essential goods from natural ecosystems, including seafood, game animals, fodder, fuel wood, timber, and pharmaceutical products. These goods represent important and familiar parts of the economy. Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are an important forest resource in Pakistan, with the potential to make a significant economic contribution to small, resource-based communities. Non-timber forest products include all the human-exploited uses of plant and fungal species of the forest, other than timber, pulpwood, shakes or other wood products. The commercial harvest of NTFPs from forest lands is a significant economic activity in Pakistan and in some areas it is important to rural economic development. This study is based on a sample of 209 households in three selected villages of District Abbottabad. The data were collected using a pre-tested interview schedule in spring 2008. This study investigates the role of common property resources as a source of sustainable rural income in Ayubia National Park. No study has ever been conducted in Pakistan on the role of NTFPs collected from the forests in ANP area. This study was conducted to examine the extent of dependency of households on NTFPs as family income; the relative contribution of NTFPs in annual family income; category wise variation of NTFP collection among households, if any; the type of NTFP collected by villagers; and trend of NTFP collection for sale, etc. The study finds that family size and family type contributed positively to NTFPs income and labour employment, landholdings and agricultural income and cost of technology contributing negatively to NTFPs dependence.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Abstract
• Ⅰ. Introduction
• Ⅱ. CLASSIFICATION OF NTFPs
• Ⅲ. The Conceptual and Econometric Models
• Ⅴ. Results and Discussion
• Ⅵ. Conclusions and Policy Recommendations
• References
• Appendix