ABSTRACT
Trade in non-timber forest products (NTFPs) is voluminous, but attempts to quantify it are guesswork at best. Estimating the value and volume of NTFP trade is difficult for a number of reasons, the most significant being that the classification ‘NTFP’ is not recognized by most government agencies tasked with keeping economic statistics. Vantomme (2003) cites several additional obstacles to gathering NTFP trade data, including:
NTFPs are often used for subsistence purposes or traded in the informal market sector.
NTFPs are heterogeneous and are overseen by a variety of government agencies (e.g. departments of forestry, agriculture, horticulture and manufacturing), leading to dispersed and inconsistent reporting.
NTFP product classification systems are inadequate for tracking NTFPs.
