Commercial collection of NTFPs and households living in or near the forests

In Vietnam, NTFPs has become an important source of cash income for local people living in or near the forests. The commercial collection of these products could reduce both the number of species and population of a species in the forests. In order to keep the balance between biodiversity and commercial collection of NTFPs, this paper evaluates the dependence of forest dwellers on NTFPs and identifies the relation between household characteristics and cash income generated by NTFP collection. As a result, commercial collection of NTFPs is negatively correlated to dependency ratio, poverty level and distance to the provincial city, and positively correlated with female labors of households. Moreover, NTFPs are proved to be very important in poor households or in those who lack rice or high rate of female labor. The households who have higher dependency ratio benefit less from NTFPs sold, while those who lack rice for their own consumption or have a higher rate of female labor depend more on NTFPs. Poor households are more dependent on NTFP collection than other groups. Finally, the result of this study highly recommends that the Government of Vietnam be aware of gender balance, distance to provincial city, poverty level and dependency ratio when applying a policy related to NTFP conservation. An appropriate incentive policy for woman and poor households might be a possible solution for less commercial collection of NTFPs. The poor households who have low dependency ratio or high female labor rate should be encouraged to participate in the forest management system to control the balance between commercial collection of NTFP and conservation.