Problems with the Use of Nontimber Tropical Forest Products in Ecodevelopment: A Bioeconomic Approach

Abstract

"Hall and Bawa (1993) warn that using Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFP's) as an alternative source of income in eco-development schemes may lead to the same over-harvesting problems that tradition timber products have suffered in the last century in the tropics. They suggest that careful monitoring and management may be necessary to avoid biological over-harvesting of these new eco-resources. Monitoring and managing these resources may overcome the problems of biological over-harvesting, but it may not come cheaply. This paper, therefore, takes their warning a step further by showing that the economic potential for local management will only exist under a certain combined set of ecological and economic conditions. Well-intended development schemes that fail to account for the renewable nature of these resources, the economic characteristic of the market for these goods, and the social characteristics of the manager/harvesters may be self-defeating."