Throughout history, the forests have been valued for the multiplicity of products and benefits that they provide, both for subsistence and for trade: foods, medicines, spices, resins, gums, latexes, wildlife, fuelwood, and of course timber and other wood products. The literature is rich with examples of international trade in forest products, many dating back thousands of years. Significantly, in most cases the products sought by traders were resins, oils, spices, and much less frequently timber.
For most of the modern era, however, from a development perspective forests essentially have been seen as a source of one product: wood. For example, in the first issue of Unasylva, published in July 1947, an article describing the structure and function of the FAO Division of Forestry and Forest Products (now the Forestry Department) defined the forest as "essentially a wood producing unit.... its treatment must be conditioned by the technological properties of its products for their industrial utilization".
This perspective has often resulted in intensive short-sighted use of wood resources, to the detriment and even destruction of the rest of the forest ecosystem. Particularly hard hit have been the forest dwellers, who depended heavily on the forest resources that were being depleted and who often shared little in the benefits derived from the extraction of timber.
More recently, however, the belief that forests are of value only for wood production in a macro-economic context has gradually been modified - in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, combined with a growing concern over providing sustainable benefits at both national and local levels. It is now apparent that forests provide a whole range of other products and benefits, most of which have long been known and utilized by local people, and many of which still are essential to their survival. The challenge is to better quantify and assess the value of these products; and then to transform the use of as many of them as are commercially, socially and ecologically viable from one of subsistence to one of development; i.e. to bring them into the mainstream of forest-products subsector planning and policy-making, alongside the already well-established timber products of national and international commerce, while at the same time ensuring enduring benefits to local people. These efforts must be an integral part of a comprehensive, realistic approach to realizing the full potential of forestry for sustainable development.
In the first article in this issue of Unasylva, G.E. Wickens, retired Head of the Economics and Conservation Section of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, examines some of the management issues fundamental to the sustainable development of forest products other than timber. The development of international markets for forest products with established local uses is one way of increasing their value. P.H. May, of the FAO Forest Products Division, details a series of institutional marketing linkages between Brazilian forest dwellers and Northern entrepreneurs.
The forests are an important source of food, but growing human populations and decreases in the resource base are putting these generally unimproved products under increasing pressure. J.C. Okafor details his work on increasing the productivity of edible forest products in Africa. On the basis of a study she conducted for an FAO-assisted regional forestry project in the South Pacific, G. Olsson examines the socioeconomic importance of forest products other than timber in Vanuatu and considers options for sustainable development.
Traditional crafts based on forest resources have significant potential in terms of employment opportunities, small business enterprise, trade and tourism, and improving the well-being of local people without depleting renewable natural resources. K. Kerr examines efforts to develop this potential in Indonesia.
It is hum an nature to want to label or categorize, but the preemption of the appropriate term - "forest products" - for those exclusively based on wood has created serious problems. Initially, the phrase "minor forest products" was adopted , but if applied in terms of anything other than the relative physical size of the products concerned, its use is practically ludicrous. The variety and volume of these products dwarf those of "traditional" wood products, and their value, if properly assessed, almost certainly exceeds that of timber.
An alternative term suggested in some quarters has been "non-wood forest products", but this label is unsatisfactory in that it excludes important resources, including fuelwood and building poles. Similarly "non-timber forest products" can be misconstrued to include products such as wood pulp. In the final analysis, the difficulty in assigning a single, all-encompassing label to forest products other than timber will be resolved only when forest land use and development-policies and practices are adjusted so that these products are given the full attention they merit. Then and only then can the term "forest products" be properly applied once more to the totality of benefits derived from the forest resource. FAO is moving strongly in this direction; the recent reorganization of the Forestry Department saw the establishment of a Forest Products Division with a special branch focusing on issues related to development of forest products other than timber.
