NTFPs and poverty alleviation in Kyrgyzstan: potential and critical issues

NTFPs from walnut-fruit forests in rural Kyrgyzstan have the potential to contribute to poverty alleviation in the region. This can only occur through the reform of institutional arrangements regarding access to these products. The author uses the three dimensions of the World Bank’s definition of poverty to raise some important issues about this matter:

Opportunity

• NTFPs from walnut-fruit forests offer income opportunities and there is also potential to add value by processing them in local communities

Security

• Households should also have access to other sources of incomes because of yield fluctuations from NTFPs

• Commercialisation increases risks of the poor losing rights

Empowerment

• User rights to NTFPs have often favoured richer households, so a deliberate effort to focus on the poor should be made

• High-level policy has ignored the issues of empowerment because of limited understandings of ‘sustainable forest management'