Forest Products (forest + products)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Kinds of Forest Products

  • non-timber forest products


  • Selected Abstracts


    An Ecological and Economic Assessment of the Nontimber Forest Product Gaharu Wood in Gunung Palung National Park, West Kalimantan, Indonesia

    CONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 6 2001
    Gary D. Paoli
    We studied the demographic effect and economic returns of harvesting aromatic gaharu wood from fungus-infected trees of Aquilaria malaccensis Lam. at Gunung Palung National Park, Indonesia, to evaluate the management potential of gaharu wood. Aquilaria malaccensis trees openface> 20 cm in diameter occurred at low preharvest densities (0.16,0.32 ha) but were distributed across five of six forest types surveyed. During a recent harvest, 75% of trees were felled, with harvest intensities ranging from 50% to 100% among forest types. Overall, 50% of trees contained gaharu wood, but trees at higher elevations contained gaharu wood more frequently ( 73%) than trees at lower elevation (27%). The mean density of regeneration ( juveniles> 15 cm in height) near adult trees (3,7 m away) was 0.2/m2, 200 times greater than at random in the forest (10/ha), but long-term data on growth and survivorship are needed to determine whether regeneration is sufficient for population recovery. Gaharu wood extraction from Gunung Palung was very profitable for collectors, generating an estimated gross financial return per day of US $8.80, triple the mean village wage. Yet, the estimated sustainable harvest of gaharu wood at natural tree densities generates a mean net present value of only $10.83/ha, much lower than that of commercial timber harvesting, the dominant forest use in Kalimantan. Returns per unit area could be improved substantially, however, by implementing known silvicultural methods to increase tree densities, increase the proportion of trees that produce gaharu wood, and shorten the time interval between successive harvests. The economic potential of gaharu wood is unusual among nontimber forest products and justifies experimental trials to develop small-scale cultivation methods. Resumen: Datos ecológicos y económicos son esenciales para la identificación de productos forestales no maderables tropicales con potencial para la extracción sostenible y rentable en un sistema bajo manejo. Estudiamos el efecto demográfico y los beneficios económicos de la cosecha de la madera aromática gaharu de árboles de Aquilaria malaccenis Lam infectados por hongos en el Parque Nacional Gunung Palung Indonesia para evaluar el potencial de manejo de la madera. Arboles de Aquilaria malaccenis> 20 cm de diámetro ocurrieron en bajas densidades precosecha (0.16,0.32 ha,1) pero se distribuyeron en cinco de los seis tipos de bosque muestreados. Durante una cosecha reciente, 75% de los árboles fueron cortados, con intensidades de cosecha entre 50 y 100% en los tipos de bosque. En conjunto, 50% de los árboles contenían madera gaharu, pero árboles de elevaciones mayores contenían madera gaharu más frecuentemente ( 73%) que árboles de elevaciones menores (27%). La densidad promedio de regeneración ( juveniles> 15 cm de altura) cerca de árboles adultos (de 3 a 7 m de distancia) fue de 0.2 m,2, 200 veces mayor que en el bosque (10 ha,1), pero se requieren datos a largo plazo sobre el crecimiento y la supervivencia para determinar si la regeneración es suficiente para la recuperación de la población. La extracción de madera gaharu de Gunung Palung fue muy redituable, generando un rendimiento financiero bruto estimado en US $8.80 diarios, el triple del salario promedio en la zona. Sin embargo, la cosecha sostenible estimada de madera gaharu en densidades naturales de árboles genera un valor presente neto de sólo $10.83 ha,1, mucho menor que el de la cosecha comercial de madera, uso dominante del bosque en Kalimantan. Sin embargo, los rendimientos por unidad de área podrían mejorar sustancialmente mediante la instrumentación de métodos silviculturales para incrementar la densidad de árboles, incrementar la proporción de árboles que producen madera gaharu y reducir el intervalo de tiempo entre cosechas sucesivas. El potencial económico de la madera gaharu es poco usual entre los productos forestales no maderables y justifica la experimentación para desarrollar métodos de cultivo en pequeña escala. [source]


    Photocatalytic oxidation of methanol using silica-titania composites in a packed-bed reactor

    ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRESS & SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, Issue 4 2006
    Jennifer M. Stokke
    Abstract The processing of forest products into pulp, paper, paperboard, and other wood products results in the generation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). This work focused on the development of a photocatalytic packed-bed reactor for the oxidation of methanol, which is the primary constituent in high volume low concentration gases emitted from pulp and paper mills. Bench-scale studies using an annular reactor packed with silica-titania composite (STC) pellets were conducted to maximize methanol removal and minimize the formation of byproducts, such as formaldehyde. Parameters such as STC pore size (ca. 40, 120, and 260 Å) and UV wavelength (UVA and UVC) were varied. In the dark, the STC pellets removed methanol via adsorption and had a finite adsorption capacity dependent on the surface area of the composite. When irradiated with UV light, the STC pellets adsorbed and oxidized methanol simultaneously. At the bench-scale, 40 Å STC pellets irradiated with UVC light achieved the greatest methanol removal (ca. 90%) with minimal byproduct formation (i.e., effluent formaldehyde concentration was <1 ppmv). Based on these results, a 40 acfm pilot reactor was fabricated and achieved methanol removal rates up to 66% ± 7% with <1 ppmv formaldehyde production at steady state. © 2006 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 2006 [source]


    Women's traditional fishery and alternative aquatic resource livelihood strategies in the Southern Cameroonian Rainforest

    FISHERIES MANAGEMENT & ECOLOGY, Issue 3 2010
    R. E. BRUMMETT
    Abstract, To inform the development of alternative livelihoods, the women's traditional alok fishery in the Campo-Ma'an National Park and buffer zone of southern Cameroon were studied over 15 months. Participatory rural appraisal was used to characterise livelihood strategies among 45 households. Thirty-three cultured crops, nine farmed animal species and 65 non-timber forest products, including 31 bushmeat species are cultivated in, or harvested from, the forest. Transport is a major impediment to commercial trade of all local products. In 16 alok fishing events, average weight of fish harvested was 5.14 kg per 280 m of stream distributed among an average of 23 fishers for a return of 220 g person,1 or 40 g fish h,1 over 5 h of work. Fish and crustacean standing stock was 25 g per linear metre or 167 t when extrapolated to the zone. Implications for rainforest livelihoods in light of the Millennium Development Goals are discussed. [source]


    A zoological perspective on payments for ecosystem services

    INTEGRATIVE ZOOLOGY (ELECTRONIC), Issue 2 2007
    Jeffrey A. McNEELY
    Abstract The concept of payments for ecosystem services is being developed as an important means of providing a more diverse flow of benefits to people living in and around habitats valuable for conservation. The Kyoto Protocol, under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, includes a Clean Development Mechanism to provide for payments for certain forms of carbon sequestration that may benefit animal species (at least as an incidental benefit). Other market-based approaches for paying for carbon sequestration services outside the Kyoto framework are being promoted in various parts of the world. Another common form of payment for ecosystem services is compensating upstream landowners for managing their land in ways that maintain downstream water quality; this can include habitat management that benefits wild animal species. While biodiversity itself is difficult to value, it can be linked to other markets, such as certification in the case of sustainably-produced forest products. This paper expands on some of the markets for ecosystem services that also benefit wildlife, identifies relevant sources of information, and highlights some of the initiatives linking such markets to poverty alleviation. Making markets work for ecosystem services requires an appropriate policy framework, government support, operational institutional support, and innovation at scales from the site level to the national level. Zoologists have much to contribute to all of these steps. [source]


    Factories, Forests, Fields and Family: Gender and Neoliberalism in Extractive Reserves

    JOURNAL OF AGRARIAN CHANGE, Issue 3 2007
    SUSANNA B. HECHT
    This paper explores the theoretical debates on extraction and development in Amazonia, and the emergence of extractive reserves (ERs) as a tropical development alternative. It reviews the role of women in Amazonian rural economies and then analyzes the (often invisible) tasks of women within the reserves through an analysis of the gender division of labour in the collecting and processing of non-timber forest products and agriculture. It then considers how lack of attention to rural women's labour obligations played out in a development project, Projeto Castanha, that began as an urban factory, but was later recast as a neoliberal decentralized processing and outsourcing programme. The project failed to appreciate the demands on, and the opportunity costs, of women's time and thus had very limited success as women withdrew their labour. The paper argues that there may be many more options for supporting extractive economies (and the women who work in them) in more peri-urban and village projects even though extractive reserves are valuable ecologically and socially in the regional economy. [source]


    Ocean liner shipping: Organizational and contractual response by agribusiness shippers to regulatory change

    AGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 4 2003
    Hayden G. Stewart
    The Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 1998 (OSRA) promotes changes in international ocean liner shipping. An important policy issue attendant to the passage of OSRA is the Act's likely impact on the international competitiveness of the sectors that depend upon ocean shipping. Thus, to establish how freight rates and other logistical costs of using ocean liner services are now determined, this study examines emerging methods of organization and contracting among exporters of food and forest products. We find that, although many shippers negotiate private contracts with carriers, many others utilize a third-party agent to negotiate a rate with a carrier on their behalf. This article also identifies differences between two key types of third-party agents. Finally, given that a shipper in this trade does not contract directly with a carrier, this article explains the shipper's conditional choice about which type of agent to use. [EconLit citations: L140, L980, Q130]. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 19: 459,472, 2003. [source]


    Economic transition and the decline of agricultural production in Estonia

    JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 4 2005
    Shujie Yao
    Agricultural production in Estonia has declined rapidly under economic transition since 1992, causing a number of undesirable social and economic problems. Rural unemployment has increased, so has the incidence of poverty. The country has changed from being a net exporter to a net importer of many major agricultural products over a short period of time. To understand the causes of agricultural decline, this paper uses a policy analysis matrix (PAM) to study the competitiveness and profitability of various agricultural, fishery and forest products for the period 1994,95. The results suggest that much of the loss of production may have been explained by economic reforms that were intended to eradicate market distortions created by the former Soviet system, but government's ,non-interventionist' policy and the rigidity of foreign exchange rate may have aggravated the situation. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


    A livelihood from the forest: gendered visions of social, economic and environmental change in Southern Cameroon

    JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 8 2001
    Katrina Brown
    This paper explores divergent perceptions and experiences of social, economic and environmental change of villagers in Southern Cameroon arguing that the economic crisis has impacted very differently on men and women within the same community and within households. The analysis highlights shifts in cropping patterns towards increased food crops, especially cassava and plantain, for cash. Sources of livelihood for men have diversified in the face of economic crisis, whereas women have reduced room to manoeuvre. This results in women becoming increasingly dependent on utilizing non-timber forest products for cash in order to meet their livelihood needs. However pressures on forest are increasing for a number of reasons and access to land and trees is becoming constrained, so future benefits from forest products will be contingent on clear, well defined and enforced community property rights. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


    Cellulose structure and biosynthesis: What is in store for the 21st century?

    JOURNAL OF POLYMER SCIENCE (IN TWO SECTIONS), Issue 3 2004
    R. Malcolm Brown Jr.
    Abstract This article briefly summarizes historical developments in fundamental research related to the structure and biosynthesis of cellulose. Major advances concerning the structure of cellulose include the discovery of a new suballomorph of cellulose I, the lattice imaging of glucan chains showing no fringe micelle structure, parallel chain orientation in cellulose I, and the discovery of nematic ordered cellulose. Major advances in biosynthesis include the discovery of the terminal synthesizing complex, the isolation and purification of cellulose synthase, the in vitro synthesis of cellulose I, and synthetic cellulose assembly. This article focuses on recent advances in molecular biology with cellulose, including the cloning and sequencing of cellulose synthase genes from bacteria, cyanobacteria, and vascular plants; proof of the terminal synthesizing complex as the site of the catalytic subunit of cellulose synthase; cellulose and callose synthase expression during growth and development; and phylogenetic aspects of cellulose synthase evolution. This article concludes with thoughts about future uses for the accumulating genetic information on cellulose biosynthesis for textiles and forest products and discusses possibilities of new global resources for cellulose production. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 42: 487,495, 2004 [source]


    Forests, marketization, livelihoods and the poor in the Lao PDR

    LAND DEGRADATION AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 2 2006
    J. D. Rigg
    Abstract The Lao PDR is making the transition from subsistence to cash, and command to market. Rural communities are being drawn ever more tightly into the embrace of the market economy and of the central state. The construction of roads, schools and health centres, the provision of credit and new crops and technologies, and the arrival of traders and the panoply of the consumer economy are all, in their different ways, remoulding rural economy and society. This paper looks at one aspect of this multi-stranded process of agrarian transformation: the role and place of forests and, in particular, non-timber forest products, in rural people's lives and livelihoods. The paper highlights the contradictory and uneven livelihood-eroding/enhancing effects of these transformations. In many upland areas of Laos livelihoods are being squeezed from ,below' by environmental degradation and from ,above' by the operation of government policies and, more generally, by evolving market relations. While market pessimists see market integration as a largely destructive process, the paper highlights the opportunities that market integration can provide through diversification and livelihood reorientation. The challenge is that these opportunities are unequally available and are likely to promote social differentiation. Some households find themselves in a position to embrace new opportunities while others are forced to continue to rely on a declining and degrading forest resource. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


    Estimating the potential role of commercial over-harvesting in resource viability: a case study of five useful tree species in South Africa

    LAND DEGRADATION AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2005
    C. M. Shackleton
    Abstract There is a growing commercialization of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) as a means of livelihood by rural communities throughout the developing world. This often occurs in the absence of any clear understanding of or guidelines regarding sustainable yields and ecological impacts, which may undermine the success of NTFP enterprises, especially from arid regions. This paper reports on the use of size class profiles and three quantitative indices to examine population profiles of five potentially useful tree species used as NTFPs in the semiarid lowveld of South Africa. We also contrast the population densities of the five tree species in 2003 with data from 1992. Low stem densities and population profiles indicated that three of the five species would preclude the establishment of NTFP enterprises based on their products. The other two species seem to have sufficient densities for some harvesting to take place, within an adaptive management framework. However, the longitudinal data indicated that the density of both these species had significantly declined over an eleven-year period, highlighting the need for appropriate management institutions. Additionally, the proportion of mature stems cut, and the degree of cutting per stem, had increased for all five species over the eleven years. The three quantitative indices of population stability were not correlated with one another, and hence provided a useful suite of measures sensitive to different aspects of size class profiles and their interpretation. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


    Green segmentation and environmental certification: insights from forest products

    BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Issue 5 2010
    Derek W. Thompson
    Abstract Firms engage in environmental marketing in order to appeal to environmentally conscious consumers. Within the context of the forest product industry, this research uses data from two studies to empirically test whether a relationship exists between demographic/psychographic characteristics and reported environmentally conscious intentions. In both studies, the results indicate that the environmental marketing of certified/ecolabeled forest products appeals to a segment of environmentally conscious consumers. This appeal occurs for both a value-added product (furniture) and a non-value-added product (plywood). Thus, there is support for the argument that environmental marketing to environmentally conscious consumers can result in ,green segmentation'. Key findings from this study suggest that those consumers reporting the strongest preferences for environmentally certified forest products were more willing to pay a premium for certified products, more likely to display environmentally conscious behavior and more likely to perceive that green consumer purchases effectively benefit the environment. These characteristics were most common among females and those familiar with the concept of environmental certification. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and EPR Environment. [source]