ABSTRACT
That people from around the world have incorporated numerous plant and animal products into their lives, economies, cultures, traditions and histories is well known, and is the subject of a multitude of academic and non-academic documents across many disciplines. Historically, the use of these products has underlain trade between cultures and continents and the domestication of many present day crops and breeds (Laws 2011), so much so, that most urban citizens in the developed world have forgotten the original wild origins of current day staples in foods (e.g. corn, potatoes, rice, tomatoes, oranges, melons, sugar, coffee, tea, spices), medicines (aspirin, codeine, quinine, strychnine), fibres (cotton, sisal, coir, hemp), resins (lacquer, gum Arabic, rubber, turpentine), dyes (cochineal, indigo, saffron), intoxicants (tobacco, mushrooms, cannabis, opium) and artefacts. While such staple foods, medicines and the like used by the ‘western’ urban consumer have become domesticated and are now almost exclusively produced in farming systems or replaced by synthetic substitutes, thousands of other animal, plant and fungi species are still widely used by peoples around the world. These species make significant contributions to livelihoods and economies, such that if their abundance or supply is jeopardized, it can have measurable repercussions on the well-being of local communities and households. For example, in India, these biological resources contribute an income equivalent of US$2.7 billion per year and absorb 55% of the total employment in the forestry sector. Moreover, 50% of forest revenues and 70% of forest-based export income come from such resources (Chauhan et al. 2008). They provide 50% of the household income for approximately one-third of India’s rural population.
