Non Timber Forest Products Innovation and Commercialization in Ethiopia: Implication on Forest Conservation and Local Livelihood

7 Dec 2011 Injibara, Ethiopia, Africa Forests

Tefera Belay Endalamaw


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26 May 2015

Establishment of Community Based Bamboo Craft Enterprise

The purpose of this study is to understand in-depth the rural technologies applied to tap NTFP resource potential, their existing contribution for livelihood and design an innovative NTFP commercialization and management model that improve local livelihood without compromising ecosystem integrity of the source forest.

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Management of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) is the oldest form of forestry practice. Despite its early start in the history of forest management, the utilization technology is still low with limited investment for innovation. However, in the last 30 years interest for these product categories has revived again. The desire for ecosystem based management and the need for improving local livelihood while conserving nature are the two major drivers for the renewed interest in the subsector. Despite the recognition for the multiple values of NTFPs, research so far dwell on arguments about whether NTFP environmental and economic benefits instead of research on technology upgrading and commercialization options.

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Ethiopia lying slightly north of the equator has a variety of agro-ecological zones ranging from desert to alpine moorlands which is resulted from altitudinal variations. These variations enable it to be one of the centres of fauna and flora diversity which inturn helps the country to have a large number of non timber forest products (NTFPs) that can be used for augmenting poverty reduction effort and curbing environmental degradation. Despite the huge potential from NTFPs, the benefits accrued so far is insignificant. This research hypothesized that the reasons for this are low management of NTFP source species, underdeveloped processing technology and low level of product commercialization. In order to address the proposed research hypothesis, this research focuses on three high value NTFPS. These are Bamboo, honey and forest coffee. They are found abundantly, crucial for their respective ecosystem, utilized locally and in the case of Forest coffee internationally as well.

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In order to generate the required data to achieve the proposed objectives, multiple data sources with multiple data collection techniques will be applied. The major data that will be collected includes rural technology and innovations, NTFP contribution, diversity of NTFP source species, market pattern and dynamics along the value chain. Data will be analysed statistically and logically depending on the data type and synthesized latter to produce innovative NTFP management and commercialization conceptual model. The research result from the three NTFPs may also be adopted for other related NTFPs with modest research and development.

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