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What are Non-Timber Forest Products?
Nontimber forest products (NTFP), also referred to as Special Forest Products, encompass all forest species other than tree parts used for timber. They include both commercial and potentially commercial species. NTFP is not a biological category but rather a political economic category useful for highlighting the lost value when timber is the primary focus of forest managers. Oregon's vast temperate forests have both an extensive diversity and density of nontimber forest products. Examples of NTFPs in Oregon include wild mushrooms, ferns, ornamental plants, floral greens, medicinal plants, cones, and much more.
For a more complete definition and list of NTFPs in visit the websites listed below.
Why are NTFPs an important component to sustainable forestry?
Essentially, NTFPs can be used to supplement or supplant timber cutting from forests ecosystems. Even-aged timber management, the most common form of forest management in Pacific Northwest forests, typically contributes to a decline in forest health through reducing complex ecological systems to monocrop tree plantations. Active management for NTFPs, on the other hand, can potentially maintain ecosystem complexity and play an important role in restoring biodiversity and balance to damaged forests. Furthermore, extraction of a broader range of natural resources, other than just timber products, can lead to economic diversity and stability for rural forest communities, thereby contributing to greater regional economic stability.
How could these products help me add value to my forestland?
Even with little active management of NTFPs, these industries have been growing rapidly and have been contributing millions of dollars annually to the Pacific Northwest since the mid-1980's. By managing forestland so that NTFP diversity is allowed to flourish, one can potentially increase the long-term value of a forest while simultaneously playing an important role in forest conservation.
What kinds of resources exist in the state to help me develop this aspect of my land?
Currently, existing NTFP businesses have most of the information about NTFP markets, production, and regulations. However, forestry extension agents, sustainable development organizations, environmental consulting firms, and more are starting to become more knowledgeable about NTFPs. Let these businesses and groups know you are interested in exploring NTFP options and ask for their help.
What are some of the other issues associated with NTFPs?
Gathering forest species in the region we call Oregon, for food, medicine, shelter, and other uses, dates back to the first human inhabitants. Euroamerican pioneers who settled in Oregon also gathered nontimber resources from the forests. Some of these traditions continue to this day and are an important part of our heritage and are embedded in the cultural fabric. Thus, it is important that new commercial industries respect and not undermine these noncommercial use patterns.
Most NTFP extraction is done by harvesters working by hand. In Oregon, thousands of people make part or all of their living as harvesters. Some of these people are employees of businesses, but many are independent contractors with a vested interest in the well-being of the forest areas they harvest. Many talk about the joy of working in the woods and their efforts to steward the land and resources they depend upon. In recent years forest managers have restricted access to NTFP harvesters, squeezing them into smaller areas of the forest, increasing competition and tension between harvesters, and undermining stewardship incentives. To avoid these problems, managers, harvesters, and all other stakeholders need to work closely together to educate each other and construct sensible management approaches.
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H-NET BOOK REVIEW-http://www.h-net.msu.edu/In 1992, when the U.S. Forest Service adopted ecosystem management as its guiding policy for managing its lands, the Forest Service deliberately
went against its traditional principles of forest resource management that aimed at generating high volumes of lumber and wood fiber. The
decision has meant that the Forest Service and the sixteen additional federal agencies that followed suit now must "account for the effect of any
management actions on a much broader array of species and harvesting activities than in the past" (p. 349). Instead of environmental impact
statements, environmental assessments, and other land planning documents concentrating almost exclusively on timber, nontimber forest products
must now be given equal consideration.
Much the same can be said for the study of nontimber forest products (NTFPs) in forest and conservation history as well. NTFPs (which
include thousands of plants such as wild mushrooms, cones, boughs, maple syrup, andd hundreds of medicinal plants) have been an integral part of forest
ecosystems and vital if underrated players in American cultural and economic history. But until recently they have received little
attention from historians and social scientists in the United States. The editors note in the preface that scientific research on NTFPs in the United
States is fragmented and underfunded, and the number of scholars claiming expertise in NTFP issues is naturally small. Because the focus of the
majority of the field's historiography has been on timber and the traditional forest resource management sciences inaugurated during the
nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century conservation reforms, the study of NTFPs has long been overshadowed by the study of timber. In
forest and conservation historiography, in other words, one could not see the nontimber forest products for the trees.
Nontimber Forest Products began in 1997 as an effort to gather papers for an international NTFP workshop for North America. The United
Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the workshop's sponsor, backed out in 1999, and the Canadian and Mexican partners soon thereafter
dropped out because they lacked funding. The U.S. team decided to continue and shifted its focus away from a description of state-of-the-art scientific
and management knowledge about NTFPs to a harder "analysis of key U.S. policy issues, research directions, and management concerns" (p. xiv).
The effort produced not only this book, but also a website, www.ifcae.org/ntfp , that houses data initially gathered for and by the
authors, and which has since been expanded and is set up to aid other researchers.
In setting the parameters for the project, the editors chose to use the FAO's definition of NTFPs, which encompasses five broad product
categories: foods; floral greenery and horticultural stocks; medicinal plants and fungi; fiber and dye plants, lichens, and fungi; and oils,
resins, and other chemical extracts from plants, lichens, and fungi. The definition is broad enough to include everything from forests
relatively unmodified by humans to those that exist only because of human intervention. In addition, the authors narrowed the definition and
limited the discussion to include botanical species only. Because the focus in several essays is on food and medicinal products, not
"historical" or industrial products like naval stores, some forest historians may be disappointed. Again, it should be emphasized that
this work was not intended as a historical survey or examination, but rather as an introduction to the state of research on NTFPs.