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Agroforestry has potential for strengthening the climate change resilience of smallholder farmers in Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, the food security challenges faced by smallholders will likely worsen due to climate change impacts. Agroforestry provides and option for strengthening climate change resilience, while contributing to food access, income, health, and environmental stability. To evaluate the evidence for such benefits, this systematic review identifies 22 peer-reviewed articles published between 2000 and 2019 which assess agroforestry’s contributions to food security in Indonesia, mostly in Java or Sumatra. Analysis of the studies indicate that traditional and commercial agroforestry contribute to food security in diverse ways: for example, traditional homegardens offer 20% more dietary diversity than commercial counterparts, while commercial homegardens may contribute up to five times more income. Agri-silviculture contributions fall along a timber versus non-timber forest product continuum that displays a similar tradeoff between diversity and income. Those systems with a commercial focus may receive 54% of their income from a single commodity crop such as coffee, while traditional systems allow greater access to plants with medicinal benefits. Nearly all agroforestry systems offered indirect benefits for food security, such as allowing more off-farm work than traditional agriculture and contributing to environmental stability: users of agroforestry were found by one study to collect 83% less fuelwood from natural forests. One study highlighted that agroforestry options have up to 98% greater net present value (for periods over 30 years) compared to slash and burn style agriculture. However, very few studies of Indonesian agroforestry focused explicitly on financial analysis and food security, indicating the need for further research. Given the similar situations faced by many Southeast Asia countries, our findings contribute to emerging trends throughout the region regarding the relationship between agroforestry and food security.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on forest product markets and the forest product industry, and has also seriously affected the sales of forest products. This research aimed to analyze people’s preference for wood furniture and make policy recommendations. We examined the impact of the pandemic on consumers’ preferences for wood furniture from the perspective of accounting. Taking the accounting data of wood furniture enterprises as the research object, through the translog revenue function, and using the relationship between revenue and consumption in economics, we found that the COVID-19 pandemic has reduced consumers’ preferences for wood furniture, but the decline in preference is smaller for wood furniture produced by extra-large furniture manufacturers. This study contributes to the literature and in view of our research results and the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, we provide policy suggestions for the related governmental agencies and wood furniture manufacturers, in this special environment, that can reduce the negative impact of a pandemic on the wood furniture industry.

The position of Ukraine and the EU regarding the moratorium which is introduced on the export of rough wood was considered in the paper. The preconditions for introducing a ban of the exports of timber are analyzed. The analysis and generalization of domestic normative legal acts and international commitments of the WTO and Ukraine, including the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), in the field of forestry regulation, is conducted. The actual problems in the forest product industry of Ukraine are found out. The main objective of the article is to propose recommendations for the development of the export policy of timber trade in conditions of European integration that will not contradict the international obligations of Ukraine. Investigations have shown that in the provisions of the GATT and the Association Agreement there are exceptions, which allow non-compliance of commitments in certain extreme cases. However, in adopted bills there is no ample evidence regarding the necessity of applying or restricting exports. Based on international experience, the impact of the export ban on the timber industry as a whole has been determined. It has been established that the wood-based industry receives positive effects only in the short-term period. However, all sectors of forest product industry will be negatively affected in the long-term period. Recommendations on the development of export policy for timber trade by abolishing import duties and value added tax for equipment for forest-based processing enterprises, the analogues of which are not made in Ukraine, for the purpose of modernization of equipment and further development of the forest-based industry, have been given. Based on the experience of European countries, it is proposed to export timber using the “residual method”, that is, primarily to provide raw materials to domestic producers, and to introduce export duties on roundwood production. After analyzing alternative ways of developing Ukraine’s export policy regarding timber trade in conditions of European integration, based on the escalation of tariff and tariff barriers, optimal rates of ad valorem and specific export duties have been proposed. With the justified introduction of export duties, the restriction of domestic consumption of timber, the abolition of import duties on the necessary equipment for wood processing, which are not analogous to those produced in Ukraine, all prerequisites for the development of domestic forestry are created.

Forested landscapes around the world are owned, governed, and managed by many small owners and collectives. The management decisions that these owners and collectives make aggregate into measurable impacts on forest cover, fragmentation, carbon storage, biodiversity, and on the ecosystem services these forests provide to owners and broader society. Conversely, large scale processes such as climate change, globalization of markets, changes to laws regarding land tenure and access, and labor migration and remittances dramatically affect individual forest owners and the activities they are able to do on their land. Using NVivo 11.0, I coded and analyzed 456 papers describing research in the intersection of private or communal owners, forests, and landscape-scale impacts or influences. This analysis identified several prominent themes. Forested landscapes are increasingly split into smaller managed segments among more owners, in some cases facilitating deforestation. Global-scale processes such as labor migration and globalized forest product systems influence management decisions of family forest owners in most countries, particularly the choice of growing exotic species plantations and converting forests to cash crops. Programs and policies aimed at family and communal forest owners can be better targeted to incentivize these owners to protect and enhance forest benefits for broader society, and to better support owners’ adaptations to climate change, invasive species, biodiversity loss, and population demographics. Forest-based tourism and non-timber forest products are important but undervalued incentives for forest conservation. Given the large proportion of forests owned and managed by smallholders, landscape-scale planning and conservation goals cannot be met without engaging these forest owners.

Due to globally uneven distribution of forest resources and timely difference of supply and demand, forest products are difficult to achieve market equilibrium among neighboring countries. The global forest product trade not only alleviates the contradiction of supply and demand, but also ensures the sustainable development of the economic construction for each country. Previous literature analyzed the structure and evolution mechanism of forest product trade from different perspectives, but ignored the competitive relationships among forest product importers. Based on complex network theory, this paper selected global wood forest product trade data from 2004 to 2016. Then we constructed global unweighted and weighted wood-forest-product competitive network from import perspective, and three indicators (density, average path length, and clustering coefficient), core–periphery model and two indicators of competitive intensity were introduced to study the spatial competitive evolution of global wood forest product trade among countries. The results showed that there was wide competition in global wood forest product trade among continents, and the tightness of competitive relationships gradually decreased with time. Secondly, core countries and periphery countries were clearly identified in the competitive network, and China, Japan, the U.S., were the main core countries influencing the evolution of core–periphery structure. Finally, the U.S. played an important role in the global competition system. But with the increment of demand for Asian market, China and other Asian countries gradually became the center of wood-forest-product competition. The research tried to provide some references for importers to follow the laws of global wood forest product trade, and formulate the corresponding policy under constructing sustainable society and facing climate change.

With the advent of the European bioeconomy and a shift in lifestyle among European citizens, non-wood forest products (NWFPs) are given more attention in the public debate. Their potential to strengthen the economic viability of rural economies appears to be high, particularly in regions where wood is not the most profitable forest product. However, information on NWFP production potentials are scarce and tools to support forest owners in decision making about NWFP management are rarely available. Considering the complex relationships between a sustained production of NWFPs, the use of the available ecological resources, as well as the organizational and the market potential of forest management regimes, we introduce a knowledge-based expert model for supporting NWFP management. In a mixed-method approach qualitative and quantitative techniques are combined to depict regional production and business potentials of NWFPs, explicitly addressing different environmental and socio-economic contexts. For the model building multi-criteria analysis methods were used for preference elicitations in an iterative form, including stakeholders and experts. Within two distinct case study settings (i.e. Austria and Finland) the expert model is tested for applicability and to depict the most suitable option from a suite of selected NWFPs. Results for both case studies well reflect current NWFP business potentials and provide insights to the opportunities of mixing more resilient and more risky NWFPs to a solid regional business portfolio, fostering the co-production of wood and non-wood resources. The approach presented has a potential to steer the mindset of different forest owner types to critically revise their interests in forest management. It could act as an eye-opener for forestry-oriented stakeholders who have not yet considered NWFPs as potential assets in forest management systems. With its ability to include various NWFPs and to consider different forest owner preferences, future applications can be tailored towards the needs of both small-scale (non-industrial) forest owners and bigger forest holdings.

Ever since man realized the benefits of mangroves, the habitat has been impacted, but peaked in the twentieth century. Approximately 35% of the world’s mangrove area was lost between 1980s and 1990s with deforestation rates ranging from 1% to 8%. The major drivers of mangrove deforestation in recent times include aquaculture, agriculture, urban expansion, forest product extraction, salt pond conversion, and the oil and gas industry. The boom in the aquaculture industry from 1970s onwards resulted in almost 28% of the habitat being lost in Asia (Bangladesh, India, China, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia) and South America (Ecuador, Brazil, Peru) but by country, wise losses ranged from 7% to 63%. In South East Asia alone mangrove loss to aquaculture amounted to approximately 30% (1.66 million hectares). The total global economic value of mangrove loss to aquaculture is amounted at US$3.78–17.01billion/year. Three types of organisms are generally cultured in mangroves, namely fish, shrimp/prawns, and crabs. Mangrove conversion to aquaculture is a response to food security which is mainly to an increase in demand for protein and a decrease in marine capture fisheries. This is however is not without costs, such as habitat destruction, loss of ecosystem services, water quality reduction, exotic species introduction, and disease.

The development of economic forestry industry is an important support in the process of rural revitalization strategy and precise poverty alleviation, as well as enrichment of the people. As the market of economic forestry products is close to a perfectly competitive market, brand effect is crucial under homogeneous competition, and economic forestry product enterprises and other business entities need to win and maintain sustainable competitive advantages through brand management. Currently, in the field of economic forest, products such as Chinese wolfberry, jujube, blueberry, fungus, walnut, tephrosia, hazelnut, and chestnut and forest foods and product brands with certain market recognition have emerged, but for most small- and medium-sized economic forest product enterprises, forest product brand cultivation and construction are still in the initial stage. Under the rapid development of the Internet, different types of Internet platforms, which provide new tools and possibilities for branding, the way of corporate brand marketing, and customer management services, have also undergone significant changes. In the market with serious homogenization and increasingly fierce competition, how to establish brand-consumer connection through the Internet platform, strengthen the intensity of consumer participation and connection to the brand, give play to the brand effect, and enhance the brand value in the long term, so as to obtain a new way to win a sustainable competitive advantage, has become an important proposition for all kinds of enterprises, including economic forest product enterprises. Combining the competitive characteristics of economic forestry products and the development of the Internet, the model of brand value enhancement of economic forestry products based on virtual brand communities is constructed. The model takes the experience value obtained by consumers in the virtual brand community as the antecedent and studies the path relationship from experience value, community identity, brand fit, and consumer brand value creation to brand value in four dimensions, utilitarian experience value, emotional experience value, social experience value, and learning experience value, and takes community integration and community support feeling as the moderating variables.

Pine oleoresin is an important nontimber forest product. It can be used to produce rosin and turpentine, which are important industrial chemicals. The production and industrial uses of oleoresin have received much attention, and chemical taxonomy based on the components of essential oil from needles has been a popular research topic. The molecular and biosynthesized basis of the composition of the resin has been more comprehensively studied in relation to traditional genetics, such as heritability and correlation. Here, the characteristics of the chemical compositions of oleoresins from 43 pine species using GC and GC–MS methods were reviewed. Then, the chemical taxonomy of oleoresin was compared with Little and Critchfield's classification and Gernandt's classification, and the traditional genetics of the chemical components of oleoresin using two pine species (Pinus elliottii and P. massoniana) were compiled. NIR spectroscopy methods for oleoresin composition analysis were first reported, and the potential of the oleoresin for renewable and sustainable energy was addressed with reference to recent publications. Oleoresin is not only an important nontimber forest product currently but also, an important resource for renewable and sustainable energy in the future.

In tropical rainforests, access to and availability of natural resources are vital for the dietary diversity and food security of forest-dwelling societies. In the Congo Basin, these are challenged by the increasing exploitation of forests for bushmeat, commercial hardwood, mining, and large-scale agriculture. In this context, a balanced approach is needed between the pressures from forest exploitation, non-timber forest product trade and the livelihood and dietary behavior of rural communities. While there is a general positive association between tree cover and dietary diversity, the complex biocultural interactions between tropical forest food resources and the communities they sustain are still understudied. This research focuses on the knowledge and use of wild food plants by the forest-dwelling Baka people in southeast Cameroon. By using two different sets of methods, namely ex-situ interviews and in-situ surveys, we collected ethnographic and ethnobotanical data in two Baka settlements and explored the diversity of wild edible plants known, the frequency of their consumption, and potential conflicts between local diet and commercial trade in forest resources. Within a single Baka population, we showed that the in-situ walk-in-the-woods method resulted in more detailed information on wild food plant knowledge and use frequency than the ex-situ methods of freelisting and dietary recalls. Our in-situ method yielded 91 wild edible species, much more than the ex-situ freelisting interviews (38 spp.) and dietary recalls (12 spp.). Our results suggest that studies that are based only on ex-situ interviews may underestimate the importance of wild food plants for local communities. We discuss the limitations and strengths of these different methods for investigating the diversity of wild food plant knowledge and uses. Our analysis shows that future studies on wild food plants would profit from a mixed approach that combines in-situ and ex-situ methods.

Mursidah, Lahjie AM, Masjaya, Rayadin Y, Ruslim Y. 2020. The ecology, productivity and economic of swiftlet (Aerodramus fuciphagus) farming in Kota Bangun, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 21: 3117-3126. Swiftlet nest is a high-value non-timber forest product produced from the saliva of swiftlet birds. While the demands for this commodity continue to increase in global market, careless harvesting techniques have diminished the swiftlet population and the production of swiftlet nests, threatening its sustainability. One effort to solve this problem is by developing swiftlet farming which involves building swiftlet. This research aimed to analyze the ecology, productivity, and financial feasibility of swiftlet farming of different-sized swiftlet houses in Kota Bangun Subdistrict, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. This research used qualitative and quantitative analysis methods. Data were collected using purposive sampling to determine the location, sample of swiftlet houses, and interviews with respondents. Quantitative analysis on the financial performance of swiftlet farming was analyzed using the net Benefit-Cost Ratio (net B/C), Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and Payback Period (PP) methods. The results showed that swiftlet nest production in Kota Bangun begins in the third year and ends between 27 and 45 years later, depending on the age and size of the house as well as the quality of the timber. The swiftlet house with a size of ​​512 m2 had the net B/C of 4.06, NPV of IDR 1,403.79 million, IRR of 30%, and PP of 5.44 years. The swiftlet house with a size of ​​1,600 m2 had the net B/C of 2.27, NPV of IDR 1,774.83 million, IRR of 24.09%, and PP of 9.4 years. Our study suggests that swiftlet farming is financially highly feasible, especially for the swiftlet house with a size of 512 m2.

The volume, value and distribution of the nontimber forest product (NTFP) trade in the United States are largely unknown. This is due to the lack of systematic, periodic and comprehensive market tracking programs. Trade measurement and mapping would allow market actors and stakeholders to improve market conditions, manage NTFP resources, and increase the sustainable production of raw material. This is especially true in the heavily forested and mountainous regions of the eastern United States. This study hypothesized that the tendency to purchase medicinal NTFPs in this region can be predicted using socioeconomic and environmental variables associated with habitat and trade, and those same variables can be used to build more robust estimates of trade volume. American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L.) dealers were surveyed (n = 700), because by law they must acquire a license to legally trade in this species, and therefore report a business address. They also record purchase data. Similar data are not reported for other medicinal species sold to the same buyers, known colloquially as &lsquo, off-roots&rsquo, Ginseng buyers were queried about trade activity in eleven commonly-harvested and previously untracked medicinal NTFP species in 15 states. Multinomial logistic regression comprised of socioeconomic and environmental predictors tied to business location was used to determine the probability that a respondent purchased off-roots. Significant predictors included location in a particular subregion, population and percentage of employment in related industries. These variables were used in a two-step cluster analysis to group respondents and nonrespondents. Modeled probabilities for off-root purchasing among respondents in each cluster were used to impute average off-root volumes for a proportion of nonrespondents in the same cluster. Respondent observations and nonrespondent estimations were summed and used to map off-root trade volume and value. Model functionality and estimates of the total volume, value and spatial distribution are discussed. The total value of the species surveyed to harvesters was 4.3 million USD. We also find that 77 percent of the trade value and 73 percent of the trade volume were represented by two species: black cohosh (Actaea racemosa L.) and goldenseal (Hydrastis canqdensis L.)

In forestry applications in Turkey, forest enterprise depots (FEDs) are permanent main places where forest products such as logs and round timbers are stored and presented for sale to the market. The principal functions of FEDs are receiving, classifying, protecting, preparing the forest products for the sales and tracking the stock movements. According to Communiqué No 288 on the Production of Fundamental Forest Products published by General Directorate of Forestry in Turkey, it is obligatory to conduct stocktaking twice a year in FEDs for tracking and controlling the stock movements. The capabilities of using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in tracking stock movements in FEDs have not been extensively studied yet in the current literature. This study aimed to test UAVs in determining volume of round timber storages inside a FED named "Göl", located in Gölyaka District (Düzce, Turkey). A UAV flight was conducted and volume of round timber storage was calculated from point cloud, and compared to stock records for validation of UAV-based measurements. It was found that UAV-based volume measurements of the stock were quite compatible with available stock records. This study concluded that UAVs could be used in tracking stock movements in FEDs in an effective way.

Main pointsThough stakeholders are already aware of the importance of sustainable non-timber forest product (NTFP) management and integrated watershed management, they have yet to fully appreciate or implement them.Experiences from community facilitation show that management of one type of traditional NTFP – tengkawang (illipe nut) – from its upstream cultivation to downstream marketing could become an entry point for integrated landscape management in the Labian-Leboyan watershed.Lessons learned from activities in several Iban Dayak communities show that external facilitation from outside the villages is important as it can accelerate collaboration processes between village communities and external stakeholders; and help in establishing local strategies that integrate modern knowledge with customary rules.

Aim of study: This study explores the adoption of information and communications technologies (ICTs) and current and potential ICT use in forest products industry. Based on the perceptions of the respondents, the paper investigates the underlying factors affecting the adoption of ICT. Area of study: Case study is conducted in Düzce province where nearly all types of forest product enterprises are conducting business operates. Material and method: Face-to-face interviews were conducted with owners and/or engineers of forest products companies. A questionnaire was developed with three main sections, including 20 questions and 81 judgments. Data on the study parameters were coded and analyzed using SPSS software.Main results: The three major constructs of these factors, based on the purposes of ICT use, were identified as business productivity, information exchange and customer communications. Increased access to current industry news was the principle benefit expected by the respondents from the Internet use, followed closely by enhancement of the company image and facilitation of banking transactions. According to the study, information and communications applications were more common than e-business and e-commerce use in the forest products industry. Research highlights: The forest products industry should plan to develop and implement ICT strategies focusing on increased business productivity, competitiveness and profits, in addition to efficient customer and supplier communications and expanded markets., Çalışmanın amacı: Bu çalışma, orman ürünleri endüstrisinde bilgi ve iletişim teknolojilerinin (BİT) benimsenme düzeyi ile mevcut ve potansiyel kullanımını incelemektedir. Makalede katılımcıların algılarına dayanarak, BİT'in benimsenmesini etkileyen temel faktörleri araştırılmaktadır. Çalışma alanı: Vaka çalışması, hemen hemen her türlü orman ürünü işletmesinin faaliyet gösterdiği Düzce ilinde gerçekleştirilmiştir.Materyal ve yöntem: Sahipler ve/veya mühendislerle yüz yüze görüşme yapıldı. 20 soru ve 81 yargı içeren üç ana bölümden oluşan bir anket formu geliştirilmiştir. Çalışma parametreleriyle ilgili veriler SPSS yazılımı kullanılarak kodlanmış ve analiz edilmiştir.Temel sonuçlar: BİT kullanım amaçlarına göre; işletme verimliliği, bilgi alışverişi ve müşteri iletişimi olarak tanımlanan üç faktörlü yapı belirlenmiştir. Katılımcıların internetten beklediği temel fayda mevcut endüstri haberlerine erişimin artması olup, ardından şirket imajının iyileştirilmesi ve bankacılık işlemlerinin kolaylaştırılması faydaları gelmektedir. Çalışmada, orman ürünleri endüstrisinde bilgi ve iletişim uygulamalarının, e-işletme ve e-ticaret kullanımından daha yaygın olduğu belirlenmiştir. Araştırma vurguları: Orman ürünleri endüstrisi, etken müşteri ve tedarikçi iletişimi ile genişleyen pazarlara ilaveten, daha yüksek işletme verimliliği, rekabet gücü ve kârlara odaklanan BİT stratejileri geliştirmeli ve uygulamalıdır.

The wide extension area occupied by babassu palm (Atallea speciosa Mart. Ex Spreng) is usually considered as an important obstacle for agricultural activities, such as crop production and pasture maintenance in Brazil. This study aimed to evaluate the non-wood forest product use and income generated in an Integrated Crop-Livestock-Forestry (ICLF) system using babassu palm as the main forestry component in a rural area of Pindaré-Mirim, a municipality of Maranhão state, in the Amazon Eastern Region, Brazil. In order to rise a well-balanced agroforestry system in numerous rural areas of the country, three main questions were addressed in this study: 1) What is the production of babassu fruits in the system? 2) Is the babassu extractivism income economically suitable for traditional communities of women babassu breakers? 3) Which commercialization scenario of NWFP could generate more income? Data on phenology and fruit production, processing of all fruit components, and commercialization of babassu products were collected in two 12-month seasons of palm production (2017/2018 and 2018/2019). The mean fruit production reached 2,345.49 kg ha-1 season-1, resulting in an estimate of income generation ranging from R$ 8,206.96 ha-1 season-1 to R$ 36,628.54 ha-1 season-1, depending on the commercialization scenario. These numbers were compared to the statewide monthly income per household of R$ 605.00 and to the per capita monthly income of 54% of the municipality of less than R$ 499.00. The real field data and the estimates for two seasons of using babassu palm, as the innovative forestry component in ICLF system, demonstrated that babassu NWFP could generate substantial income for the surrounding user communities. Such innovative agricultural system may contribute to change people understanding, diversifying agrarian production, improving the socioeconomic household welfare, and reducing the long-term conflicts between livestock activities and babassu palm existence in Brazil. Made available in DSpace on 2020-10-08T09:14:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ILPF.pdf: 780417 bytes, checksum: 7a8994fb85cecef33c7f6cbfd600d281 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2020

The influence of tourism on biodiversity consumption is massive, yet poorly understood. We investigate the emergence of the thatched hut as an icon of tropical tourism, exploring linkages between widespread conceptions of paradise, tourism architecture and tropical forest management. Drawing on fieldwork in Mexico, cross-disciplinary literature review and web-based research, we globally examined how ideas of paradise along with commodification of plant resources influence touristic use of plant-based construction materials. In contrast with declining subsistence use of forest-based building materials, thatched huts have become a prevalent element of tropical tourism architecture. We documented the use of 148 plant taxa in 31 tropical and subtropical countries on 4 continents. The emergence of thatched architecture in tourist contexts represents not only a scale-up in the demand of plant-based materials, but often resulted in changes in the species utilized, resource management regimes and governance, architectural uses, and often a partial or total substitution for synthetic look-alike materials. We identified four factors distinctive to the growing commercial versus declining subsistence presence of thatched hut architecture: (1) local regulations in forest product uses and building and urban development codes, (2) prevalence of aesthetic values over material authenticity and structural efficacy, (3) greater dependency on unpredictable economic and tourist destination cycles, and (4) greater maintenance needs in environments highly vulnerable to decay and extreme weather. Our pluralistic approach of examining the iconic thatch hut through diverse disciplinary perspectives facilitated identification of multiple facets of commonly overlooked forest product use and biodiversity consumption in tropical tourism.

Exactly how do forest bureaucracies manoeuvre to regain power and maximise benefits in the bewildering legal, financial, and administrative field of forest decentralisation? Based on a review of thirty management plans, stakeholder consultations, intensive interactions with six forest user groups, forest officials, and donor project employees in Nepal, we document the mechanisms of legal-sounding re-centralisation. The central tenet is that bureaucratically established procedures, which are not required by law but treated as if they were, are used to impose regular revisions of community forest management plans. Meagre government or more generous donor budgets financed the revisions. Forest bureaucrats and/or consultants did the work and benefitted financially. None of the approaches, however, lived up to technical, scientific standards or followed stipulated participatory processes. The revised plans were almost identical to their previous versions and differences mostly a result of mere desk exercises to fulfil donor requirements and government orders, at least on paper. While legitimised by a perceived promotion of rational, technical sound, and equitable forest governance, the main function of plan revisions appears to be strengthening or re-establishing the forest bureaucracy's control over community forest resources which allows forest bureaucrats to tap into donor project and forest product value chains.

The Timber Legality Verification System (SVLK) is an instrument stipulated by the Government of Indonesia to build legitimacy on Indonesian forestry governance policies, especially those related to the utilization and distribution of timber forest products. The objective of SVLK is to cut the supply chain of illegal timber from the forest management unit to the market, through timber legality assurance. Since the enactment of SVLK in 2009, there has been no evaluation of the SVLK policy to measure its effectiveness. This study aimed to evaluate the success of SVLK in supporting the improvement of forestry governance. The analytical method used by this study is a descriptive formal evaluation. Interviews were conducted to representatives of four related stakeholder groups: six persons from timber forest product associations, five persons from three government agencies, one person from NGO, and one person from academia. The results of the study indicated that SVLK policy has quite successfully supported the improvement of forestry governance. In this regard, improvement is figured as 46% of law enforcement, 45% of accountability, 43% of participation, 42% of transparency, and 31% of coordination. It can be concluded that the SVLK policy has been quite successful in improving foresty governance.

Comprehensive study on impact and assessment of self-help groups through problems faced by self-help groups and its members in Amravati Division of Maharashtra was carried out for year 2016-2017 for Amravati division. Study was undertaken in rural areas of Amravati division, 300 SHGs, which were engaged in selected agriculture based activities dairy, poultry, goatary, vermicompost, food processing and floriculture, olericulture and forest product. In order to analyse the objectives of the study primary data was collected with the help of personal interview of self-help groups. Those Self-help groups were selected for the study which should have an activity in existence of at least 10 years, collected data then tabulated according to need and purpose of study and calculated constraints and suggestions obtained from SHGs. The constraints analysis conclude that procurement of raw material was major constraints in production, the lack of social mobility. The major suggestion received from the SHG’s members were analysed and it is observed that most of the members are of the opinion that rate of interest should be minimum, improving market facilities and loan should be release earliest possible, availability or raw materials and infrastructure facilities required for running of SHG’s were the suggestion made by SHG’s members.

The important role of counselling and training activities for the community on improving community skills that can be used to improve the quality of life and welfare by utilizing the resources and potential in the villages is the goal to be achieved. Through counselling and training activities, community get information and insight, so people can understand deeply about the creative economy and its benefits. The material of the counselling delivered is adjusted to the potential of resources in the village. Counselling materials include the understanding of what is the meant of creative economy including creative industry and its definition, including what is creativity, how to utilize local raw materials that can be processed into products, processing of natural materials into decorative products, processed food products from the forest product, packaging techniques and marketing of agricultural and forestry products, Medalsari village is quite famous as a village that has a natural attractions waterfall. Counselling activities for strengthening the creative economy based on village resources was followed by fifty participants could give benefit to the participants and expected to provide motivation to other communities. This could be seen from the enthusiasm of the participants in counselling and question-answering. It also appears that the participants feel motivated to develop their business creativity, as well as participants who only rely on their work as farmers, breeders and gardeners seem quite interested in trying to start developing their creative business.

Agroforestry is a land management system developed in the Bina Wana Community of Forest (HKm). Agroforestri in Community forest land is the main source of livelihood for communities around the forest. Labor is a resource that can affect the quality and quantity of forest product production, so it needs to be managed well in supporting agroforestry management in HKm. The purpose of this study was to analyze the distribution and contribution of outpoured labor in the family for each agroforestry activity in Gapoktan HKm Bina Wana. The data collection method was conducted by survey using interviews using questionnaires to 24 Gapoktan members. Data analysis was carried out by tabulation for all purposes in this study. The results showed that the distribution of labor outflows was most abundant in harvesting and postharvesting activities, namely 23% of the total use of labor for all agroforestry management activities. Subsequent sequences were soil cultivation (19.09%), planting (14.33%), fertilizing (13.26%), weeding (18.77%), and spraying (10.56%). Total of use of labor is 68% which is included in workers outside of the family. The contribution labor in the family towards agroforestry management in HKm Bina Wana shows a percentage of 32% of total workforce used.

The topic of social capital has been gaining many concerns from social researchers throughout the world, especially in collective action perspective. This study aimed to describe the organizational activities of the local forest management practices ( parak and rimbo ) as a social capital in collective action perspective. The research method is a case study of Koto Malintang and Simancuang people in West Sumatra. Collecting data was conducted by unstructured interviews, field observations, and document studies. Data analysis uses categorization and coding, document analysis, and historical analysis. Our findings were described in the context of decision-making, resources management and mobilization, communication, and conflict resolution. Collective action for decision-making involved the acquisition, allocation, and distribution mechanisms to divide land and forest product among local people. In the context of resources management and mobilization, they applied kinship relations among families, sub-clans, and clans to manage their resources. They then communicated their needs in any formal and informal meetings. When a conflict occurred in related to forest utilization, they applied an adat court to make a win-win solution. Nevertheless, the challenges of collective action are still about the resources availability, benefit equity, and external supports

We explored greenhouse gas (GHG) implications of locally-sourced and produced wood pellets to heat homes in the US Northern Forest region. Using data from regional pellet industries, forest inventories and harvests, we analyzed pellet GHG emissions across a range of harvest and forest product market scenarios over 50 years. We expanded an existing life cycle assessment (LCA) tool, the Forest Sector Greenhouse Gas Assessment Tool for Maine (ForGATE) to calculate GHG balances associated with the harvest, processing, and use of wood pellets for residential heating vs. alternative heating fuels. Market assumptions and feedstock mix can create diverging GHG emission profiles for pellet heat. Outcomes are predominantly influenced by biogenic carbon fluxes in the forest carbon pool. An industry-average pellet feedstock mix (50% sawmill residues, 50% pulpwood) appeared to generate heat that was at least at parity with fossil-fuel heating alternatives when harvest levels remain unchanged due to pellet production. If harvest levels increase due to pellet production, using pellet heat increased GHG emissions. If baseline harvest levels drop (e.g., following the loss of low-grade markets), GHG emissions from pellet heat would at least remain stable relative to fossil alternatives.

Many factors influence adoption of smallholder agroforestry systems as part of the farm business. This paper reports farm and household factors affecting the adoption of timber and non-timber forest product management practices by farmers in Gunungkidul, Sumbawa and Timor Tengah Selatan districts in Indonesia; and how understanding those factors can facilitate the adoption of silvicultural practices for enhancing timber and NTFPs production. The research uses logistic regression models to identify the significant factors influencing farmers’ agroforestry adoption and management decisions. When considering a total of 16 factors equally, the models confirmed that farmers who have access to extension services, farmers’ groups and knowledge of government policy are more likely to adopt timber and NTFPs production technologies. The probability of management practices increasing with the greater land area was due to space for growing more timber and NTFPs species. Also, the possibility of adopting timber and NTFPs management increased as farmers had more income from on- and off-farm activities. These findings suggest that when designing extension programs farm and household factors should be considered by policy makers, researchers and extension providers.

Ownership of private forestland is changing rapidly, especially in areas owned by industrial forest product companies. Following divestment by industrial owners, forested lands are increasingly likely to move from intensive timber production to subdivision of the land, development and other private uses, or alternatively to conservation under public tenure. This research follows a unique dataset of forestland properties previously owned by industrial and corporate owners in Wisconsin from 1999 to 2014. A multinomial logistic regression showed that divested lands were more likely to be publicly purchased outright if they were adjacent to water, adjacent to public land, not adjacent to roads, and had higher housing value, while in contrast the predictors of conservation easement acquisition were location in large blocks outside of zoned townships. Properties were more likely to be parcelized if they were adjacent to a paved road, adjacent to water, smaller, in a zoned township, and had fewer years remaining in their tax program enrollment. In an era of rapid industrial land divestment, these findings indicate an important role played by public policies, including preferential tax programs and funds for land and conservation easement acquisition, in shaping whether private forestland is parcelized, conserved under private ownership, or publicly acquired.

This study explored the consequences for the forest sector of a trade agreement between Australia, Canada, Chile, Brunei Darussalam, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam (TPP12), and of an extension to include India, China and the Republic of Korea (TPP15). The forecasts used a partial equilibrium model to predict the effects of reduced trade costs due to tariff elimination and of forest product demand shifts resulting from the macroeconomic impacts of TPP12 and TPP15 predicted by Narayanan and Sharma (http://wtocentre.iift.ac.in/workingpaper/workingpaper14.pdf). The results showed the effects of the agreements on the consumption, production, and trade of roundwood, sawnwood and panels, and pulp and paper, for the countries directly involved in the agreements, the European Union, and the rest of the world (ROW). Under TPP12, the main total welfare gains of wood producers and forest product consumers were in the United States and Vietnam, and the greatest losses in China and Korea. Global welfare gains were considerably larger under TPP15, to the advantage of China, Japan and Korea, but to the detriment of the United States, the European Union and the ROW.

Forest resource extraction evolves with commodification and shifts in product use and demand. Tourism is a major economic sector that represents approximately 10% of the global GDP and has the potential to drive major changes in forest activities. In the last three decades the boom of coastal tourism created new markets for the emergent community forestry sector in Quintana Roo (SE Mexico). Employing ethnobotanical and archival research methods we analyzed the evolution of management and use of three distinct forest products used in tourism architecture: polewood, thatching materials and chicozapote tree ( Manilkara zapota ) posts. Current models explain processes of forest product substitution and management intensification either in terms of economic efficiency and resource depletion, or power differences. Our results suggest the need to expand our understanding of extractive cycles to explicitly incorporate multi-scale governance, shifting values, and external shocks (i.e., hurricanes) as major drivers of change of forest products.

Most Nepalese rural households adopt diversified strategies of income generation and use products directly collected from forests. To analyse the influence of livelihood strategy on forest product utilisation, a survey of 336 rural households in lowland Nepal was conducted. Four livelihood strategies were identified by means of a Principal Component Analysis based on income variables, followed by hierarchical cluster analysis. Two livelihood strategies are assigned to on-farm activities and two to off-farm activities. The off-farm based strategies were found to result in higher household incomes. To test for differences across the livelihood strategies, additional socio-demographic variables, physical assets and location information have been analysed using ANOVA. The forest product utilisation behaviour of the households differs significantly between livelihood strategies. The households adopting a subsistence-based strategy collect the most forest products while achieving the lowest total income. However, a general influence of the total household income on the forest utilisation intensity is not confirmed. Households receiving remittances from abroad achieve the highest incomes but still collect forest products. The group of most forest-dependent households is mainly characterised by living near the forest and far from city centres with commodity and labour markets, and by having low education and a young head of household. The households relying mainly on private business income have the lowest forest product utilisation and are characterised by the highest education, proximity to markets and greatest area of agricultural land.

Studies report different findings concerning the climate benefits of bioenergy, in part due to varying scope and use of different approaches to define spatial and temporal system boundaries. We quantify carbon balances for bioenergy systems that use biomass from forests managed with long rotations, employing different approaches and boundary conditions. Two approaches to represent landscapes and quantify their carbon balances - expanding vs. constant spatial boundaries - are compared. We show that for a conceptual forest landscape, constructed by combining a series of time-shifted forest stands, the two approaches sometimes yield different results. We argue that the approach that uses constant spatial boundaries is preferable because it captures all carbon flows in the landscape throughout the accounting period. The approach that uses expanding system boundaries fails to accurately describe the carbon fluxes in the landscape due to incomplete coverage of carbon flows and influence of the stand-level dynamics, which in turn arise from the way temporal system boundaries are defined on the stand level. Modelling of profit-driven forest management using location-specific forest data shows that the implications for carbon balance of management changes across the landscape ( which are partly neglected when expanding system boundaries are used) depend on many factors such as forest structure and forest owners' expectations of market development for bioenergy and other wood products. Assessments should not consider forest-based bioenergy in isolation but should ideally consider all forest products and how forest management planning as a whole is affected by bioenergy incentives - and how this in turn affects carbon balances in forest landscapes and forest product pools. Due to uncertainties, we modelled several alternative scenarios for forest products markets. We recommend that future work consider alternative scenarios for other critical factors, such as policy options and energy technology pathways.

The understanding of interaction between rural people and forest products is one of the challenges faced while balancing forest product utilization with forest conservation in Myanmar. This study aims to contribute an effort to such challenges by analyzing the interaction of rural households with forest products in Myanmar. Data were collected using face-to-face questionnaire interviews with 218 households and conducting a rapid tree inventory across 132 circular random plots in selected rural communities around four townships of the Katha District. The empirical results indicate that the 95% of rural households were entirely dependent on forest products. The survey documented 13 main forest products and 54 tree species, which were primarily used for household consumption. Low-income households compared with medium- and high-income households with low educational level (p<0.05) and a small agricultural land area (p<0.05) were found to be more forest-dependent households. Illegal logging, mining, fuel-wood collection, slash-and-burn agriculture, and the establishment of forest plantations were reported as the main causes of forest products depletion. Findings from this study, although at a microlevel, can be used by the Myanmar Forestry Department as baseline information to improve community-based forest management activities.

The most important causes of forest fire are due to human’s activities both intentionally and unknowingly. These are the human behaviors in land use at the edge to forest or buffer area. Due to this reason, land use within the buffer area, which caused forest fire in Kanchanaburi, is being studied using Geo-informatics in order to explore and analyze the way of utilizing the buffer area, which caused forest fire. Satellite imagery is used to classify the land use. By creating buffer at the edge of forest can classify the ways of land use, which possibly cause forest fire. Moreover, the study of previous statistics and caused of forest fire is to find which land use are possible to cause forest fire. From the study, the highest cause forest fire is searching of forest products and the lowest cause forest fire is hunting. Over 82% of the forest fire caused by searching of forest product and unknown caused. There is a likelihood of forest fire, which caused by forest product searching to be increased during 2015–2017. Moreover, the study of the way of utilizing land around buffer area within 1 km from the edge of forest found that more than 60% of forest fire found in the area of deciduous forest, while 20% found in agricultural area. This research can show the relationship between land use and causes of forest fire.

International audience; AbstractKey messageIn a major Australian city, water supply has been decoupled from forests as a result of management and climate change. Water yield and quality are closely related to forest cover and have been manipulated through broad-scale intervention. The forests remain important for biodiversity protection and considering water as a forest product will fund interventions that maintain the forest’s environmental values.ContextPerth, an Australian city of 2 million people and a potable water demand of 300 GL/year, occurs in a region that has experienced a decline in rainfall and a major reduction in surface runoff to water supply reservoirs over the last 40 years. This has led to a major impact on water policies, with the collapse of surface water supply from forested watersheds resulting in the almost complete substitution of Perth’s water supply with groundwater and desalinated water. Thus, water supply has been decoupled from forests and forest management processes.AimsIn this paper, we review the interactions between forest cover and water supply in the drying environment of south-western Australia, exploring studies on the hydrological effects of extensive deforestation for agricultural development, widespread reforestation, forest management, and reduced annual rainfall. We draw conclusions applicable to other regions that are experiencing the combined impacts of climate change and pressures from land-use intensification.ResultsWe find that streamflow and water quality are clearly linked to forest cover and this is affected by both climate and forest management. Streamflow increases with a reduction of forest cover (through deforestation or thinning) and decreases with reforestation and reduced rainfall. Stream salinity increases with deforestation and decreases with reforestation. Hydrological responses occur where forest cover treatments have been applied and maintained at watershed-scales. Surprisingly, where water yield or quality has been improved, this has not been rewarded financially and there is a need to develop methods of financing treatments to maintain streamflow.ConclusionWhereas forests were initially maintained for water and timber supply, with biodiversity protection as a co-benefit without a defined value, the decoupling of forests from water supply has substantially reduced the financial resources for any form of direct forest management. As the forests remain important for biodiversity protection, a key recommendation is to consider water as a forest product and thus provide funds for watershed-scale treatments, such as forest thinning, that maintain the forest’s environmental values in a drying climate.

As the largest consumer of petroleum and second highest producer of greenhouse gas emissions, the United States currently is a leading country in bioenergy production driven by a series of policies. One such public program that directly subsidizes biomass feedstock growers is the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP), which recently received attention for stimulating the development of bioenergy. However, critiques were also raised, concerning the possibility of intensifying the feedstock competition between bioenergy and forest products. This study, therefore, aimed at assessing the effects of BCAP on the forest product markets with the Global Forest Products Model (GFPM). Three alternative scenarios were designed to simulate three payments in BCAP. In the first scenario, the matching payment was simulated by adjusting the manufacturing cost of fuelwood and particleboard. In the second scenario, establishment payment was simulated by adjusting the supply rate of industrial roundwood. In the third scenario, the annual payment was simulated by linking the supply change rate with the soil rental rate for industrial roundwood. We found that, under the matching payment scenario, industrial roundwood and particleboard will experience a sharp decrease in production and an increase in price. For establishment payments, industrial roundwood will experience a continuous increase in production and a decrease in price. For annual payments, the industrial roundwood will experience a V-shape pattern production.

This working paper set out to examine the links between migration and forests through a case study of Malinau District in North Kalimantan, Indonesia. The findings indicate that there has been a generational shift in migration patterns: educational migration is the primary driver of migration from the research sites. An implication of such a shift is that migration has switched from being an income-generating activity to one that is a financial burden on rural households. To cover the costs of education, households whose livelihoods are based primarily on farming and forests, are intensifying agricultural production and forest product collection. The research highlight the urgent need to create jobs and economic opportunities for young people at the forest frontiers. This is created by a rise in migration for education, a growing need to earn regular cash income to finance such migration, and aspirations among young people to return to their villages upon completion of their studies. The study links the findings to social forestry policy as it is potential both to provide economic opportunities for people in the forest frontier and at the same time will also benefit from absorbing the returnee educated migrants.

To the best of our knowledge, no study has systematically reviewed and analyzed the research trends of wild-simulated ginseng (WSG) used for food or medicinal purposes in many countries. WSG, a non-timber forest product, has been traditionally produced using agroforestry practices, and it has been consumed in various ways for a long time. WSG has a great demand in the market due to its medicinal effects, particularly in improving forest livelihoods and human health. Due to the significance of WSG, we conducted this research to explore the global research trends on WSG using systematic review methodology and keyword analysis. We used two international academic databases, the Web of Science and SCOPUS, to extract 115 peer-reviewed articles published from 1982 to 2020. The research subjects, target countries, and keywords were analyzed. Our results indicate four categories of WSG research subjects, namely growth conditions, components, effects on humans/animals, and the environment of WSG, and the case studies were mainly from the Republic of Korea, China, and the USA. Through topic modelling, research keywords were classified into five groups, namely medicinal effects, metabolite analysis, genetic diversity, cultivation conditions, and bioactive compounds. We observed that the research focus on WSG changed from the biological properties and cultivation conditions of WSG to the precise identification and characterization of bioactive metabolites of WSG. This change indicates an increased academic interest in the value-added utilization of WSG.

Ethiopia has made an ambitious pledge for Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) under the Bonn challenge and the so-called AFR100 initiative – to restore 15 Mio ha of degraded forest lands by 2030. This target is in line with national and international policy objectives to effectively address climate change and develop a ‘Climate Resilient Green Economy’. Implementation at scale is pending as technical, financial and policy challenges need to be addressed. This paper presents a case study that was commissioned by German technical development cooperation. The objective was to develop a landscape restoration strategy for the area connecting Chebera Churchura national park and Kafa Biosphere Reserve in the Southwestern part of Ethiopia. The ‘Restoration Diagnostic’ tool developed by the World Research Institute was used to identify options for establishing a biodiversity corridor and to assess FLR opportunities. Based on the results of a field study and extensive GIS analysis, suitable FLR measures were identified and discussed in stakeholder consultations. Results show that more than 25% of the entire area is suitable for restoration measures; however, in the populated parts of the landscape a focus on productive aspects seems critical, i.e. to improve the provision of food, fuel wood and timber. Barriers relate to low institutional capacity, lack of infrastructure and undeveloped forest product value chains. Addressing these challenges can significantly contribute to sustainable management of natural forests in the buffer zone of the protected areas, and to promote agriculture and socio-economic development of the zones outside protected areas. The findings of such assessments can inform decision makers and donor organizations about FLR in candidate areas. If they become a key source of information in the respective policy processes they can contribute to effective governance of FLR.

Mountains are critical ecosystems that have a strong influence far beyond their topographic boundaries. More than 50 million people inhabit the Himalayas, and more than one billion people depend on the ecosystem services they provide. Anthropogenic activities have driven concurrent deforestation and regeneration in the Himalayas, and interventions to reduce forest loss and promote forest recovery require a synthetic understanding of the complex and interacting drivers of forest change. We conducted a systematic review of case studies from 1984 to 2020 (n = 137) and combined a system dynamics approach with a causal network analysis to identify, map and articulate the relationships between the drivers, actors and mechanisms of forest change across the entirety of the Himalayan mountain range. In total, the analysis revealed five proximate drivers, 12 underlying drivers, two institutional factors and five ‘other’ factors connected by a total of 221 linkages. Forest change dynamics have been dominated by widespread smallholder agriculture, extensive non-timber forest product extraction, widespread commercial and non-commercial timber extraction, and high rates of agricultural abandonment. Underlying drivers include population growth, poor agricultural productivity, international support for development projects, and successful community forest management systems. Contradictory linkages emerge from a combination of contextual factors, which can have negative impacts on conservation goals. Global processes such as shifts in governance, transnational infrastructure-development programs, economic slowdowns, labor migrations and climate change threaten to destabilize established dynamics and change forest trajectories. The underlying and proximate drivers interact through multiple pathways that can be utilized to achieve conservation goals. Based on this analysis, we highlight five thematic focus areas to curtail forest loss and promote recovery: (1) decreasing the population pressure, (2) sustainable increase of agricultural productivity, (3) strengthening of forest management institutions, (4) leveraging tourism growth and sustainable infrastructure expansion, and (5) fuel transition and establishing firewood plantations on degraded land. The broader adoption of systems thinking, and specifically a system dynamics approach and causal network analysis, will greatly enhance the rigour of policy development, help design site-specific interventions at multiple spatial scales which can respond to local and global changes, and guide deeper inquiry to enhance our understanding of driver-forest dynamics.

Agent-based models are popular in common-pool resource management to represent complex systems and stimulate collective action and management, where they are used to evaluate scenarios of stakeholders’ choice in participatory simulations. We developed the “CoComForest” (COllaborative COMmunity FOREST management) model to support community forest management (CFM) and non-timber forest product (NTFP) harvesting in Nan Province, northern Thailand. The model was used as a computer-based role-playing game to support sharing of perceptions and knowledge among stakeholders, and in participatory simulations to explore future CFM scenarios. The Unified Modelling Language was used to build the conceptual model, subsequently implemented under the CORMAS (COmmon-pool Resource and Multi-Agent System) simulation platform. Several tests were conducted in the laboratory for verification and calibration before using this tool with 21 diverse stakeholders during a field workshop. Three different participatory gaming and simulation sessions were organized. The first one focused on the co-validation of the model with participants. They accepted most of the model functionalities and the scheduling of the rounds of play. The model was used in the subsequent two sessions to simulate the scenarios of firebreak establishment and introduction of outsiders intensively harvesting NTFPs, respectively. The results showed that the intensive harvesting practices of outsiders accelerated the depletion of resources, whereas the prevention of wildfire by establishing firebreaks could increase the resource availability in the landscape. The debriefing session at the end of the workshop focused on the analysis of simulation results and the relationships between the players’ decision-making and their actual circumstances. Individual in-depth interviews conducted after the workshop helped to evaluate the use of this model with local stakeholders. Most participants considered the model as a useful common representation of the system they manage collectively. Its use in participatory simulations facilitated communication among the stakeholders searching for an adapted and acceptable collective action plan to improve CFM at the sub-district level in order to prevent the overharvesting of NTFPs by outsiders.

SUMMARY While gender issues are becoming increasingly integrated in international environment and development policies, the simplistic manner in which they are treated holds scant promise for real change. In the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) program in Burkina Faso, women are targeted in projects promoting non-timber forest product commercialisation aimed to incentivise forest conservation. Such policies are often based on essentialist assumptions about what men and women do, ignoring that social relations of inequality need to be understood in context. Drawing on intersectional theory this study analyses REDD+ documents, and data about resource use in two villages in Burkina Faso, showing how the participatory approach in Burkina's REDD+ program is unlikely to encourage currently marginalised voices to be heard in existing forest management organisations. Rather, the lack of acknowledgement of intersecting relations of inequality leads to crucial aspects of NTFP res...

SUMMARY Non-timber forest product (NTFP) commercialisation can have both detrimental and positive effects on the livelihoods of indigenous peoples yet there is a paucity of empirical studies from which to draw conclusions, especially when economic activities are linked to traditional use and knowledge. Based on research conducted in arid areas of north-western Namibia with indigenous Himba communities, this paper assesses the social and economic effects of commercialising the traditional perfume plant Commiphora wildii, used by Himba as part of a daily personal care ritual. Results show improved access to food, education and health care as a result of the income gained and increased benefits to women, but also illustrate the complexities and inter-related nature of many components and the difficulties of drawing generalised conclusions. These results concur with literature showing that NTFP commercialisation is an important strategy to diversify livelihoods and thus decrease vulnerability to climate varia...

In terms of global forest product market developments, the twenty-first century has been in many ways very different from the twentieth century—striking structural changes have taken place. The global forest sector can be interpreted to be in a phase of creative destruction—an era characterized by a major decline of a number of established products and businesses, and simultaneous emergence of new products and businesses. The forest product research field appears to be lacking the tools for formally assessing the significance and extent of the changing production and consumption patterns. That is, the mainstream of quantitative forest product market research has relied to a large extent on forest sector modelling, focusing on questions related to the impacts of policies, sufficiency of wood resources, trends in the production of primary wood products, and international competitiveness. In doing so, they have paid less emphasis on some of the equally important questions, such as value added development, employment issues, structural changes, the diffusion of new products and services, and the realistic contribution of the forest-based sector to the global sustainability challenges. When considering the importance of global forest product markets to the economy, employment and forests, and the changes taking place in the markets, the scale of research on forest product markets is alarmingly low. This review clearly points to a need to significantly increase the volume of academic research and education on the global and regional forest-based product markets.

A challenging issue in landscape ecology is the evaluation of changes in a forest landscape following a disturbance. This evaluation usually entails examining changes in the forest inventory, which represents the best information available for a given forest region. Our aim was to extend existing methods used to evaluate forest inventory to include additional variables, such as value-based forest product options, wood fibre attributes, and ecosystem services. Inclusion of such variables in forest inventory evaluations would allow research results to be presented from an economic perspective, which is often required for policy development and forest management decision-making. We developed a value-based framework to evaluate forest inventory and implemented it in the wood fibre value simulation model. We then used a local data set from Manitoba, Canada, to show how the model can be applied to the mapping of new inventory layers to facilitate the evaluation of landscape changes. Five new inventory layers are mapped including bioenergy and heating value that can be directly used for evaluating landscape changes, and wood density, fibre length, and pulp yield, which can be combined with total wood volume to derive new variables or indices to express changes in landscape conditions. Our model can contribute to the assessment of landscape changes by indicating the values a forest can have when it is used for different conservation or utilization purposes. The model can also support improved decision-making with respect to the management of forest resources.

An industry-wide emphasis on sustainable asphalt practices has given rise to increasing use of warm-mix asphalt (WMA) technologies. WMA reduces both binder viscosity and mixing and compaction temperatures by 20–55°C during the asphalt mix production and laydown process. This research investigates several bio-derived WMA additives that act as chemical modifiers with surfactant properties. Two established additives derived from the forest products industry are studied as well as a WMA additive in development that is derived from corn. The objective of this research is to use the new AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design to compare the established forest product WMA additives with the new WMA corn-derived additive that is in development. Using binder and mix test results as input values in AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design, predicted pavement performance was evaluated for sensitivity to different climatic conditions seen in the Midwestern United States. Results indicate that the climatic conditions have a larger impact ...

Over 80% of Sub-Saharan population depend on woodfuels as their main energy source, mainly firewood and charcoal. In Burkina Faso, despite the absence of reliable studies, this dependency is expected to continue and even increase in the next decades. With some of the highest annual population increments and lowest indexes of human development in the world, Burkina Faso is also among the most vulnerable countries to climate change. This study examines the challenges of governance, production and use of woodfuels in Burkina Faso on the basis of an extensive literature review and the views elicited through 13 in-depth interviews with local experts. With poverty as the underlying driver, agricultural expansion is identified as the principle driver of deforestation, followed by woodfuel production. Intensification of agriculture, agroforestry practices and promotion of on non-timber forest product businesses are some of the key opportunities recognised. While decentralisation is seen as an opportunity for sustainable resource management, the lack of resources, unclear tenure regime and corruption need to be urgently addressed. An improved management system in the Forest Management Units is also needed to avoid forest degradation. The 20 concrete recommendations made in the study should be further investigated for their consideration in a future wood energy strategy.

This study explored characteristics of households affected by deforestation in their fuelwood and non-timber forest product (NTFP) collections in Kampong Thom Province, Kingdom of Cambodia, where tropical lowland forests are decreasing in size owing mainly to agribusiness development and farming. Deforested areas were delineated by satellite image interpretation of forest cover change. A questionnaire survey was conducted for 161 households in six villages within three districts having varying degrees of forest cover changes per capita over a period of 5 years. Generalized linear mixed models were used to analyze characteristics of households affected by deforestation in their fuelwood and NTFP collections. The characteristics vary with the collection activity examined, either fuelwood or NTFP collection. We revealed that deforestation notably affects villagers whose non-forest fuelwood sources are scarce. People who collected fuelwood in forests after deforestation are more likely to be affected if the remaining forest area per capita near their village is less. In contrast, for NTFP collection, the size of the deforested area per capita near villages is more important than that of the remaining forest area, particularly to those who depend on NTFP collection as one of their main livelihood activities before deforestation. In contrast with much of the literature that has stated that the poor depend more on NTFPs, our results show that the relationship between household wealth and NTFP dependence was more than a simple negative correlation; i.e., the local people's material wealth was not a strong determinant in our NTFP model. The importance of stakeholder analysis and consultation with local residents in impact assessments and natural resource management involving land-use changes has been progressively acknowledged in the academic literature. In this context, we argue that it is essential to identify potentially affected groups among local residents in terms of their fuelwood and NTFP collections in a short-term period widely distributed at the provincial level. The combination of our findings, method applied and existing demographic survey networks in Cambodia provides an approach of identifying the affected residents in a transparent manner.

Buxa Tiger Reserve (BTR) is located in Alipurduar Sub Division of West Bengal, India. It comprises of the entire forest area of the erstwhile Buxa Forest Division (Created in 1877 – 78) and some territory of the erstwhile neighboring Cooch Behar Forest Division. The Reserve lies between Latitudes 23o30′ N to 23o50′ N and Longitudes 89o25′ E to 89o55′ E. The total area of the reserve is 760.87 km2 of which 385.02 km2 has been constituted as the Buxa Sanctuary and National Park (Core zone of the BTR) and the balance 375.85 km2 areas is treated as a buffer zone. It has 37 forest villages and 4 fixed demand holdings, 46 revenue villages and 34 tea gardens in and around it. The survey work was done in May, 2015 by visiting a forest edge village, 28 Mile, in Buxa Tiger Reserve and the primary data were gathered through field survey and direct contact with common people and authorized centres of the region. Surveys on the demography, agriculture, livestock management, water management, education, culture, health, waste management, disaster management, transport, biodiversity, joint forest management activities, Non-timber forest product usage and human animal conflict were done in this area. In every phase of the survey work, photographic documentation was done. In spite of being positioned in a diverse and sensitive ecological zone, the village is not adequately managed. There is an urgent need for implementing sustainable management systems in the areas for the betterment of the socio-environmental structures. Some of the possible management strategies have been suggested for maintaining the social, environmental, economic and ecological balance of the region.

Deforestation is one of the major effects posed by the smallholder tobacco farming as the farmers heavily depend on firewood sourced from natural forest for curing tobacco. The research aims at assessing the factors that influence the harvesting of natural forest in the production of tobacco. Data is collected through the structured questionnaire from 60 randomly selected farmers. Binary logistic regression model is used to explain the significance of factors influencing natural forest harvesting. Results show that farmer experience, tobacco selling price, and agricultural training level negatively affect the harvesting of natural forests (to obtain firewood) for curing tobacco significantly (p<0.05). However, gender, size of the household, tobacco yield, and level of education are insignificant (p>0.05) in influencing natural forest harvesting. Though farmers are exploiting the environment and at the same time increasing foreign currency earning through tobacco production, there is therefore a need to put in place policies that encourage sustainable forest product utilization such as gum plantations, subsidizing price of coal, and introducing fees, as well as penalties or taxes to the offenders.