Welcome to Harrop-Procter Watershed Protection Society’s

Non-Timber Forest Products

Non-timber forest products can be described as any part of the forest eco-system that can be utilized other than trees.

The variety of forest resources used by humans over centuries is vast and extends to every forested country in the world. People have relied on the forest to provide many of the staples of life such as food, clothing, medicine, shelter, dyes, fuel and spiritual ceremony. Indeed many modern products were synthesized by mimicking the properties of naturally growing forest species. Only in the last decade have people become removed from the forest by the advent of chemical substitutes, the increase of industrial forestry and concentrated urbanization. It is important to remember that wildlife still utilize an extensive network of non-timber forest products.

The list of products available from the forest included mushrooms, berries, meat, fish and medicinal herbs from the forest understory, tree bark, logging waste, floral greens, Christmas trees, mosses, and cones. A related use of the forest understory is agro-forestry in which specific commercial species are intentionally planted under the forest canopy in an organized fashion in order to concentrate harvesting techniques. This system provides the important elements required by the native forest species that can-not be mimicked easily in farm fields. These techniques are popular for American Ginseng and a variety of berry crops. Wildcrafting is another term related to non-timber forest products and is the activity of harvesting wild species for personal and commercial uses.

The Harrop-Procter Community Forest Pilot Agreement was the first forest agreement or license in British Columbia to include the commercial harvest of non-timber forest products (Management plan [PDF, 72 kb]). This is a responsibility that we take very seriously as the issue of bio-diversity in the forest is key to our mandate. Very little is known about the behavior of the forest understory. In the United States, non-timber forest products or “special forest products” or “minor forest products” have been recognized as an income generator for a much longer time than they have been in Canada.

The effect has been over-harvesting of plants such as Golden Seal a medicinal plant growing in the Eastern hardwood forests. It and several other species have been harvested to the brink of extinction.

Many North American First Nations are extremely sensitive to the commercial use of non-timber forest products. In their traditions and stories, berries, medicine and mushrooms were maintained and utilized on a rotational basis and with the understanding that they were to be shared with wildlife on which they also depended. In recent years, due to the commercial popularity of species such as pine mushrooms, huckleberries, mosses and bear grass, non-timber forest products in First Nation’s traditional territories have been exploited by people from distant places. (more... >)

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Harrop-Procter
Watershed Protection
Society

PO Box 5
Procter, British Columbia
Canada • V0G 1V0

Ph. 250.229.2221
Fx. 250.229.2332

email: info@hpcommunityforest.org