It is estimated that 5.8 billion people use non-timber forest products (NTFPs) worldwide, including 2.77 billion rural users in the Global South.44 About 50 percent of the global population use wild-gathered species (the total number of species used is estimated at 50 000), and 70 percent of the world’s poor rely on wild species for food, medicine, energy, income and other purposes.45 Women play a crucial role in NTFP production, especially in Africa and Asia as the main holders of traditional knowledge, as gatherers of edible wild plants, and in small-scale NTFP trading (men are more likely to own and manage larger businesses). In addition to the physical demands, local social norms, personal safety concerns and domestic responsibilities may limit women’s opportunities in NTFP development.46
Many NTFPs have significant value. In India, NTFPs support the livelihoods of about 275 million people, with local communities and Indigenous Peoples deriving up to 40 percent of their income from them;47 in Europe, the value of NWFPs (see definition in footnote d), including in formal and informal markets and for self-consumption, is estimated at EUR 23.3 billion per year.48 In Malawi, a recent analysis based on a national survey indicated that 22 percent of the population consumes wild green leafy vegetables, which contributes to meeting daily recommendations for fruit and vegetable consumption.49 Wildmeat is a traditional food of many Indigenous hunter–gatherers. More recently, its consumption in 62 urban centres in the Brazilian state of Amazonas has been estimated at 10 691 tonnes per year; the monetary value of this consumption (USD 35.1 million) is comparable with the region’s fish and timber production.50 Wildmeat sales in Iquito (in the Peruvian Amazon) have increased at a rate of 6.4 tonnes per year over the last 45 years, in line with urban population growth.51 Inland fish, whether collected directly by households or through commercial inland fisheries, are often forest products because of their strong dependence on the quality, quantity and timing of freshwater flows from upland, riparian and floodplain forests and on the instream habitats these forests and flows create. Global inland-capture fisheries contributed an estimated 11.4 million tonnes of fish in 2021.52
Figure 3 shows trends in the production of five primary NWFPs globally, as reported in FAOSTAT. Overall, production has been on an increasing trend in the last two decades.
Figure 3Trends in production volume of five non-wood forest products, 2000–2022
SOURCE: FAO. 2023. FAOSTAT: Crops and Livestock Products. [Accessed on 29 December 2023]. https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.
New data are available (as of 2022) for pine nuts and forest mushrooms and truffles, due in part to efforts by FAO to introduce new trade codes for NWFPs (Figure 4). It is now (from 2022) also possible to monitor the trade of Prunus africana bark (reported to have anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and antiviral properties in in vivo and in vitro studies53), which has received considerable attention due to concerns about the sustainability of trade.
Figure 4Global exports of pine nuts and forest mushrooms and truffles, 2022
The recent increase in data availability for NWFPs is shedding light on a set of forest resources once perceived to have minor market value and to be confined mainly to subsistence use by people living in or near forests. It is increasingly clear that many NWFPs have considerable market value per quantity produced, often comparable with and complementary to those of wood products.n There is a need to further improve statistical practices and monitoring for NWFPs to better enable the development of evidence-based policies and programmes that can fully unlock the potential of these resources, including in the context of a bioeconomy.
