Describes special forest products that represent opportunities for rural entrepreneurs to supplement their incomes. Includes: aromatics, berries & wild fruits, cones & seeds, forest botanicals, honey, mushrooms, nuts, syrup, & weaving & dying materials. Each chapter describes market & competition considerations, distribution & packaging, equipment needs, & resource conservation considerations, & also presents a profile of a rural business marketing the products. Products suitable for small or part-time operators are described. 50 photos.

Balance the culture of wildcrafting with the demands of sustainable forest management. This comprehensive book documents the current use, research, and policy concerns relating to harvesting non-timber forest products (NTFPs). It provides a state-of-the-art review of historical and contemporary wildcrafting, ongoing research on economically useful forest products, and sociopolitical and environmental considerations for NTFP management. The implications of harvesting NTFPs are usually considered in the context of the Third World, but this unique book offers an analysis of current conditions in North America and integrates the historical, social, ecological, and policy aspects of NTFP use. It addresses the issues that arise when the primeval practice of gathering wild plants, fungi, leaves, and bark occurs in a post-industrial world. Non-Timber Forest Products: Medicinal Herbs, Fungi, Edible Fruits and Nuts, and Others.

A human rights-based agenda has received significant attention in writings on general development policy, but less so in forestry. Forests and People presents a comprehensive analysis of the rights-based agenda in forestry, connecting it with existing work on tenure reform, governance rights and cultural rights. As the editors note in their introduction, the attention to rights in forestry differs from 'rights-based approaches' in international development and other natural resource fields in three critical ways. First, redistribution is a central demand of activists in forestry but not in other fields. Many forest rights activists call for not only the redirection of forest benefits but also the redistribution of forest tenure to redress historical inequalities. Second, the rights agenda in forestry emerges from numerous grassroots initiatives, setting forest-related human rights apart from approaches that derive legitimacy from transnational human rights norms and are driven by international and national organizations. Third, forest rights activists attend to individual as well as peoples' collective rights whereas approaches in other fields tend to emphasize one or the other set of rights. Forests and People is a timely response to the challenges that remain for advocates as new trends and initiatives, such as market-based governance, REDD, and a rush to biofuels, can sometimes seem at odds with the gains from what has been a two decade expansion of forest peoples' rights. It explores the implications of these forces, and generates new insights on forest governance for scholars and provides strategic guidance for activists.

Nontimber forest products from southern Alaska (also called special forest products) have been used for millennia as resources vital to the livelihoods and culture of Alaska Natives and, more recently, as subsistence resources for the welfare of all citizens. Many of these products are now being sold, and Alaskans seek additional income opportunities through sustainable harvest and manufacture of such forest resources. We discuss the unique legal, regulatory, land tenure, geographic, vegetation, and climatic context that southern Alaska presents for marketing nontimber forest products; summarize the various species and types of products being harvested; and consider the marketing challenges and opportunities new entrepreneurs will encounter. The information and resources we provide are intended to enhance income opportunities for all Alaskans, while sustaining the organisms harvested, respecting traditional activities, and ensuring equitable access to resources.