Success is Rooted in Strategy of Compatibility

Moss and mushrooms. Bark and boughs. Ferns and roots. All are resources of and from the forest even though they bear little resemblance to the planks and boards and logs and timber that most of us think of when we think of "forest products".

Known fittingly as "non-timber forest products", or NTFPs for short, these little-known forest resources play a not-so-little role in many rural communities . There they are culturally and socially tied to the traditions of the local people and they make a direct and important contribution to a community’s sustainability and stability.

An NTFP is . . . a plant or part of a tree with economic, social and/or cultural value. It could be a food such as fiddlehead ferns, wild leeks, mushrooms and berries. It could be greenery for floral arrangements or for landscaping. Or it could be an ingredient in a pharmaceutical such as paclitaxel which is found in Yew trees and used in a cancer treatment.

How?

Non-timber forest products provide meaningful employment. They can provide food - seasonal delicacies, in some cases and, in others, sustenance, especially in low-income areas. They may play a role in cultural and social traditions. They generate financial benefits for individuals; for small-scale businesses; and for major pharmaceutical and bioproducts companies. And they benefit the "timber forest products" industry because forest companies need healthy rural communities to sustain them.

"Non-timber forest products are an important part of the practice – not just the theory – of sustainable forest management," says Natural Resources Canada research scientist Dr. Brian Titus.

With a team of researchers from across Canada and the United States, Dr. Titus has searched the literature, mined local knowledge and followed contacts and web pages to come up with a number of compelling examples that show clearly how a forest’s overall value goes up when timber and non-timber resources are managed in such a way that both are enhanced.

"The case studies we found will be very encouraging for forest managers who might be considering options in their own local areas," he says. "Although it depends on the desired species and the ecosystem you are in, we were able to find an example somewhere in North America where the local NTFP sector could benefit from virtually every silvicultural treatment or forest management activity you could think of."

Each success was rooted in the concept of "compatible management" – management for timber that is compatible with management for non-timber.

"We see compatible management opportunities as existing along a continuum from inactive to active," says Dr. Titus.

Inactive strategies make use of existing forest management tools to enhance the value of non-timber forest products.

Maps, for example.

"Maps developed for forest management that show road networks, forest cover, ecological zones and topography can be used by mushroom pickers, salal harvesters and others to identify areas where the species they are interested in grows best, and then to navigate safely and efficiently in the woods. We know from anecdotal experience that this can make a large difference to daily incomes", says Dr. Titus.

Active compatible management strategies, on the other hand, are ones that are applied with the explicit objective of increasing both timber and non-timber values.

Dr. Titus and his research team found numerous and varied success stories and each had a number of factors in common.

First, the forest companies were familiar with the local NTFP harvesters and buyers, and understood something about the commercial quality of the desired plant and its habitat, especially how silviculture treatments and forest management activities impacted both. Good communication proved to be critical, too, because it meant that forest management plans could be tweaked to suit, for example, the timing of the harvest of a non-timber forest product species. Training was also key. It meant – in one case – that NTFP harvesters who had learned proper silvicultural techniques could collect boughs for cedar oil extraction and at the same time do a good job of pruning stands to the forest company’s specifications.

Concrete examples abound.

On Vancouver Island in British Columbia, non-timber forest product harvesters cooperate with local forestry companies to salvage plants from future roadbeds once they have been surveyed. Sought-after species such as western sword fern and Oregon grape are then sold as sustainably-harvested native plants.

A wreath-maker in the United States cooperates with a forest company to harvest branches from balsam fir just before the stands are scheduled to be felled.

On the Queen Charlotte Islands/Haida Gwaii, tree harvesting in good mushroom habitat in the Skidegate Lake area is delayed to allow mushroom pickers more years in which to harvest.

In the Saguenay region near Lac-St-Jean, Quebec, where there is a demand for lowbush blueberries, permanent patches separated by strips of forest have been established so that intensive forest management of the remnant stands can be carried out with no overall net loss of forest productivity.

Also in Quebec, instead of eradicating ground hemlock that grows and blocks trails to sugar maple trees, some landowners just clip the plants. The boughs contain taxanes used in cancer treatment drugs.

"Overall, the wide range of examples of compatible management that we have found across Canada and the United States suggests that there are many imaginative ways that non-timber forest product values can be increased as part of sustainable forest management" concludes Dr. Titus.

Lynda Chambers
Media Relations
(250) 363-0794

Web Sites Related to This Topic:

• Silviculture at the Pacific Forestry Centre
• Landscape Management at the Pacific Forestry Centre
   
• For the media: download the Word version and images

In the Bookstore (free to download or order) :

• Non-timber forest products
• Publications by Brian Titus