Governing NTFP market chains

Strategies to extract and cultivate non-timber forest products can increase financial returns to poor producers. However, a global study by the Centre for International Forestry Research shows that such strategies have led to resource depletion and inequalities between households and people within the market chains.

Before NTFPs reach the end consumer they usually pass through a market chain with several stages, including harvesting, transport, control, transformation and commercialisation. Each stage has complex governance issues, involving many people in different roles, often with conflicting interests. To balance the profits between the various roles more fairly, strategies should consider market chains as an integrated whole, as shown by the following case studies.

Red Stinkwood

Red Stinkwood (Prunus africana) bark is collected from African montane forests, in countries including Cameroon and Madagascar. It is used locally as a traditional medicine and exported to Europe and the USA as the principal ingredient in medication for prostatic hyperplasia.

International demand has grown over the last 40 years, resulting in more informal, unorganised harvesters and traders. In 1995 Prunus africana was listed as a ‘vulnerable’ species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. This led to more transparent trade chain figures from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Recent inventories in Cameroon show a previously unknown level of domestication of this species, a practice which partially mitigates unsustainable harvesting from natural forests.

Fears about overexploitation of Red Stinkwood could result in trade from Cameroon being suspended and the collapse of a market that, in 2007, generated US$540,000 and provided incomes for around 60,000 people

However, persisting fears about overexploitation could result in trade from Cameroon being suspended and the collapse of a market that, in 2007, generated US$540,000 and provided incomes for around 60,000 people. Increased consumer awareness of the impacts on livelihoods and conservation may lead to lobbying and certification schemes, which could support policies that favour producer communities.

Bush mangoes

Bush mangoes (Irvingia gabonensis) from Cameroon are sold nationally, regionally and internationally (in France and Belgium). In some remote areas of Cameroon, harvesting, processing and trading contribute up to 80 percent of a household’s cash income. The trade in bush mangoes is especially important for women, but changes in forest access rights is a threat to them.

Supporting fairer mechanisms to share resources and benefits will require local, national and international efforts, all along the market chain. If producer and fair trade organisations develop and gain credibility, the need for ‘governance by buyers’ within the chain will decline. This will balance power, and therefore profits, more equally between primary producers, local processors and buyers further along the market chain.

Policy recommendations

Better governance of NTFP market chains requires greater competition between traders, increased processing and marketing capacity in producer countries, and the introduction of quality, labour and environmental standards for products.

To achieve this, governments and international agencies need to:

• improve the recognition of local rights to forest resources
• create policies and institutions that facilitate local partnerships between communities and private enterprises, and ensure that trade and use of natural resources are monitored
• improve the transparency of markets, for example, in the information given to consumers on sustainability issues
• form trade associations and hold regional multi-stakeholder ‘roundtables’ with the objective of removing trade barriers and setting transparent and concrete agreement terms.
  

Jean-Laurent Pfund, Verina Ingram and Nathalie van Vliet

Jean-Laurent Pfund, CIFOR, PO Box, 0113 BOCBD, Bogor 16000, Indonesia
j.pfund@cgiar.org