No documented information of non-wood forest products is available. However, there are many plant species available for soil and water conservation, wild life viewing, shade and estatic values (ecotourism) through Swaziland, There is a study on natural resource assessment underway at The Swaziland Environmental Authority and this will also focus on the services rendered by natural resources (of plant and animal origin) to environmental conservation.
Animal products like live animals are a major attraction of tourists, visitors and local people to Big Game Parks, other Game Reserves and privately owned Game reserves. This is because the dishes available from game meat are not common and they are a special delicacy.
Live animals are produced in nature reserves and to a lesser extent occur naturally outside nature reserves. The animals slaughtered for serving to visitors and for sale to the public at special outlets are only those that are additional to the carrying capacity of the nature reserve which is therefore being adjusted to avoid overcrowding of animals that may lead to serious environmental and health problems in the park. The statistics on the quantity of live animals disposed of per season in the various nature reserves has not been assembled and documented yet.
The possibilities of expanding commercialisation sales of game meat is still hanging in the balance since the existing nature parks are not big enough to sustain or meet the demands of the customers (Swaziland National Trust Commission, 1999).
The only available game meat is from the animals highlighted on the Table.
In the case of insects and bushmeat, it is only known that in rural communities that they supplement their diets with these but the exact information on production of these animal products is not documented except that these occur naturally and they are mainly for subsistence purposes in areas where they occur and not for sale (Ministry of Agriculture Home Economics Section, 1999).
A small project on beekeeping has been started by the Ministry of Agriculture to promote small scale beekeeping for income generation by small scale farmers. The progress of this project has not yet been critically monitored but the results are that bee honey is now available in the market places in both rural and urban areas, though not in abundance. The other aim of this project is to discourage people from depending on naturally occurring bee honey (that has resulted in the loss of millions of forests in the country through fires) and learn to raise their own bees.
