ABSTRACT
Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) provide an important source of livelihood security for the inhabitants living adjacent to forest areas. A survey 152was conducted in five villages under Mamit district of Mizoram, and it was found that NTFPs act as safety nets by collecting available NTFPs from the community forest (Village Forest Development Committee (VFDC) plantation areas). The main aim of the study is to focus on the dependence of NTFPs from the community forest of the surveyed villagers. For this, participatory rural appraisal (PRA) was done along with questionnaires, personal interviews, and group discussion with the villagers. The weaker section of the society gets benefited by providing food security in times of unavailability of agricultural cash crops, which was one of the basic needs for their livelihood. Besides the home consumption of NTFPs, they were sold to meet the cash requirements especially by the widow and landless farmers in all the surveyed villages. Such is the case; it gave them a kind of natural insurance and security for future needs. Bamboo pole, broom stick, fruits, wild foods, and fuelwood are the main NTFPs that they have collected from the community forest area. Among the various NTFPs, fuelwood (56%) has the highest percentage of household involved in harvesting alone among the studied villages, followed by wild food (46%), broomstick (35%), bamboo pole (31%), fruits (8%), and medicinal plants (5%). The potential of NTFPs in community forest are well benefited by fulfilling their daily food requirements, building materials, meeting cash, and saving money by exploiting NTFPs and reduce the yearly expenditure.
