ABSTRACT
Contemporary features of Batak food-procurement strategies include the harvesting and trade of commercially valuable non-timber forest products (NTFPs). Often such strategies are perceived by conservationists, the government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) alike as inherited traits of the Batak ‘mode of subsistence’, but it is difficult to label current Batak NTFP management strategies as primarily ‘customary’ and distinctively ‘indigenous’, as such practices have developed and continue to develop as micro-responses to government programmes (Bryant et al, 1993) and to other unpredictable factors such as ecological and climatic changes. Because of deforestation, land-use changes, demographic pressure, increasing market demand, competition with non-indigenous collectors, environmental policies restricting the use of traditional resources and NGO approaches to conservation, the Batak of Palawan receive few economic benefits from the sale of their NTFPs, especially if one considers the time and physical exertion required to pursue these activities.
