Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are any product or service other than timber that is produced in forests. They include fruits and nuts, vegetables, fish and game, medicinal plants, resins, essences and a range of barks and fibres such as bamboo, rattans, and a host of other palms and grasses. Over the past two decades, governments, conservation and development agencies and non-government organisations have encouraged the marketing and sale of NTFPs as a way of boosting income for poor people in the tropics and encouraging forest conservation. But different users define NTFPs differently, depending on their interests and objectives.
In Cameroon, Non-timber forest products are being exploited without proper controls. For a sustainable development and increase in the revenue of communities surrounding forests, CECOSDA encourages stakeholders to draft, popularize and apply norms for the exploitation and commercialisation of non-timber products. While policy-makers have tended to overestimate the employment benefits associated with timber harvests, the significance of employment and income generation in the NTFPs sector was underestimated and remains to a large extent obscure even today. NTFPs are used and managed in complex socio-economic and ecological environments. In traditional forest communities, many NTFPs may be used for subsistence while others are the main or only source of income. Some NTFPs have significant cultural value, as totems, incense, and other ritual items. Others have important medicinal value and contribute to the community’s health and well-being. But as forest areas shrink, human populations grow, markets change, and traditional management institutions lose their authority, the sustainable production of many NTFPs is no longer assured. For example, as international rattan prices increased in the 1980s and ‘90s, commercial companies in Asia hired local people to harvest available resources. Widespread over-exploitation resulted and in many places the resource was destroyed, affecting the local biodiversity and leaving the people without an important source of income. Accordingly, the Centre for Communication and Sustainable Development for All (CECOSDA) Cameroon seeks to aid in considering NTFPs in their overall context and regularising this economic domain to better help the communities. While commercial NTFPs can be of considerable value to poor people, it is important to recognize the constraints that exist outside the mere collecting and harvesting of NTFPs. Poor people are poor because they have limited access to markets, insufficient capital and generally weak bargaining power.
Some NTFPs may offer employment and income generating opportunities. But realizing this potential will require investing in other areas as well, such as micro-finance schemes, transport and training. It is also important to understand how the whole NTFP chain operates, from raw material production to the final market, to identify bottlenecks and understand their potential.
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