Wild Product Governance Finding Policies that Work for Non-Timber Forest Products

About this book

Products from the wild are used as medicines, cosmetics, drinks, foods, decorations, and for a multitude of other purposes. These products are used for subsistence, are traded locally and regionally, and comprise an important and growing commercial sector world-wide. Known as non-timber forest products (NTFPs) they contribute substantially to rural livelihoods, generate revenue for companies and governments, and have a range of impacts on biodiversity conservation. Although there are many commonalities in experience with NTFP regulation around the world, there is little information available to harvesters, companies, policy makers, NGOs, and others seeking to develop effective policy frameworks, and the lessons learned in this field are often not easily accessed.

This guide and manual addresses the shortage of technical information available on the drafting, content, and implementation of NTFP policies, and the broader issues of governance associated with these products. It also develops an analytical framework for understanding the diverse issues and elements that combine to create laws and policies that promote sustainable and equitable management, trade and use of species.

The book presents 13 country or regionally-specific case studies that examine experiences with NTFP regulation, including its sometimes unintended consequences, the effect of different policy approaches, the influence of globalization and macro-economic factors, the interface of traditional and scientific knowledge, and the relationships between NTFP regulation, land tenure and resource rights, and power and equity imbalances. Geographic coverage includes Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, China, East and CentralEurope, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Southern Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. Each chapter draws out lessons and recommendations that can be more broadly applied and an overview chapter synthesizes these and other experiences and provides a framework for the development of NTFP policy. A final section makes recommendations for various stakeholders. The volume also includes a review of available literature and resources and an annotated bibliography, including key articles, laws and other resources, linked to the People and Plants International website.

Contents

Introduction 1. Changing Policy Trends in the Emergence of Bolivia's Brazil Nut Sector Peter Cronkleton And Pablo Pacheco, Center For International Forestry Research (CIFOR) Case Study A: In Search Of Regulations to Promote the Sustainable Use of NTFPs In Brazil 2. Bringing Together Customary and Statutory Systems: The Struggle to Develop a Legal and Policy Framework for NTFPs in Cameroon Case Study B: Policies for Gnetum spp. Trade in Cameroon: Overcoming Constraints that Reduce Benefits and Discourage Sustainability Case Study C: Regulatory Issues for Bush Mango (Irvingia Spp.) Trade in South-West Cameroon and South-East Nigeria 3. NTFPs in India: Rhetoric and Reality 4. Policy Gaps and Invisible Elbows: NTFPs in British Columbia 5. NTFPs in Scotland: Changing Attitudes to Access Rights in a Reforesting Land 6. From Barter Trade to Brad Pitt's Bed: NTFPs and Ancestral Domains in The Philippines 7. From Indigenous Customary Practices to Policy Interventions: The Ecolocal and Socio-Cultural Underpinnings of the Non-Timber Forest Trade on Palawan Island, The Philippines Case Study D: Overregulation and Complex Bureaucratic Procedure: A Disincentive for Compliance? The Case of a Valuable Carving Wood in Bushbuckridge, South Africa 8. Overcoming Barriers in Collectively Managed NTFPs in Mexico 9. Fiji: Commerce, Carving and Customary Tenure 10. One Eye on the Forest, One Eye on the Market: Multi-Tiered Regulation of Matsutake Harvesting, Conservation and Trade in North-Western Yunnan Province 11. Managing Floral Greens in a Globalized Economy: Resource Tenure, Labour Relations and Immigration Policy in the Pacific Northwest, USA 12. NTFP Policy, Access to Markets and Labour Issues in Finland: Impacts of Regionalization and Globalization on the Wild Berry Industry 13. Navigating a Way Through Through Regulatory Frameworks for Hoodia Use, Conservation, Trade and Benefit Sharing 14. Laws and Policies Impacting The Trade Of NTFPs 15. The State of NTFP Policy and Law 16. Recommendations Appendix: The NTFP Law And Policy Literature: Lay Of the Land and Areas For Further Research

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Biography

Sarah A. Laird is the Director of People and Plants International and its Policy and Trade Programme, co-author of The Commercial Use of Biodiversity (2002) and editor of Biodiversity and Traditional Knowledge (2002). Rebecca McLain is Co-Director of the Institute for Culture and Ecology, in the US. Rachel P. Wynberg is a senior researcher, based at the Environmental Evaluation Unit, University of Cape Town.