Forests, Trees and Livelihoods

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Governing access to resources and markets in

non-timber forest product chains

K.F. Wiersum, V.J. Ingram & M.A.F. Ros-Tonen

To cite this article: K.F. Wiersum, V.J. Ingram & M.A.F. Ros-Tonen (2014) Governing access to
resources and markets in non-timber forest product chains, Forests, Trees and Livelihoods, 23:1-2,
6-18, DOI: 10.1080/14728028.2013.868676

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Forests, Trees and Livelihoods, 2014
Vol. 23, Nos. 1–2, 6–18, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14728028.2013.868676

Governing access to resources and markets in non-timber forest

product chains
K.F. Wiersuma*, V.J. Ingramb,c,d and M.A.F. Ros-Tonend
a
Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen,
The Netherlands; bLEI-Wageningen University and Research Centre, Wageningen/The Hague,
The Netherlands; cCenter for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor, Indonesia;
d
Department of Human Geography, Planning and International Development Studies,
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Non-timber forest product (NTFP) governance is a recent concept denoting the process
of rule and decision-making concerning production and marketing. This paper reviews
the multiple dimensions of and recent trends in NTFP governance. It emphasises that
NTFP governance is more than rule-making and includes a broader societal process
based on social practices, values and principles. This process is characterised by the
coexistence of formal and informal institutions based on plural statutory, customary
and market norms; the combination of forestry and agrarian regimes; multilevel and
multi-actor involvement in many – but usually not all – of these arrangements; and
largely separate institutions that govern access to resources and markets. NTFP
governance is characterised by an increasingly complex and dynamic hybrid of
institutional arrangements, norms and collective social practices and by cross-scale
dynamics in space and over time.
Keywords: forest governance; non-timber forest products; governance; access rights;
markets; livelihoods; value chains; bricolage

Introduction
Forests and other natural areas have traditionally provided people living in or near them with
timber and non-timber forest products (NTFPs) for use in their daily livelihoods or for trade.
The income potential of NTFPs greatly depends on how, where and what value is added: at
the source by managing wild resources or by domesticating NTFPs in cultivation systems,
and/or further along the value chain through processing and marketing. Value addition at the
source primarily depends on access to forest resources; towards the consumer end of the
chain it essentially depends on access to markets.1
The rules, decision-making processes, institutional arrangements and measures that
govern access to sources and markets are captured in the governance concept. Wild product
governance (Laird et al. 2010) relates to wild NTFP resources, whereas NTFP governance
(Ros-Tonen & Kusters 2011) also refers to cultivation systems. Despite increasing use of the
term, NTFP governance requires further unpacking to clarify what makes it unique
compared to the related concepts of forest governance and wild product governance.
This paper, therefore, critically analyses the main components of the NTFP governance
concept, emphasising the plurality of arrangements. First, it positions the NTFP governance
concept against the broader concepts of governance and forest governance. Second, it then
unravels the diversity of the production systems and value chains and the complexity of the
institutional frameworks, which encompass both a forestry and agrarian regime and address

*Corresponding author. Email: Freerk.Wiersum@wur.nl

q 2013 Taylor & Francis

 Governing access to resources and markets in NTFP chains 7

both access to resources and markets. Third, recent trends in NTFP governance are
identified.

NTFP governance: basic considerations

The NTFP governance concept has emerged analogous to the older concept of
forest governance, which is defined as the multilevel and multi-stakeholder process of
decision-making on, and the implementation of, policies for effective forest use and
management (Lemos & Agrawal 2006; Arts & Visseren-Hamakers 2012). This process
defines the purposes for which forests are managed and the conditions under which
different stakeholders have access to decision-making and implementation processes.
Kooiman and Bavinck (2005) use the term ‘interactive governance’ referring to the
interactive process between actors from the state, private sector and/or civil society at
multiple scales aimed at ‘solving societal problems and creating societal opportunities’
(Kooiman & Bavinck 2005, p. 17). They distinguish between hierarchical governance,
co-governance and self-governance, which corresponds with Arts and Visseren-
Hamakers’ (2012) distinction between governing by, with and without the state
respectively. The shift to multilevel and multi-actor governance in the last two decades is
the result of a loss of credibility of the government-centred approach in which forests are
considered as public goods to be managed, regulated and controlled by state bureaucracies
(Agrawal et al. 2008; Arts & Visseren-Hamakers 2012). This shift involves the upward
extension to international organisations, the downward extension to subnational
authorities and the outward extension to semi-public and private organisations (Arts &
Visseren-Hamakers 2012). It reflects the seemingly contradictory trends of globalisation of
policies and instruments to address deforestation and associated impacts on environmental
services and climate (e.g. REDD þ and certification), and localisation in the form of
decentralised governance (e.g. joint/collaborative forest management and extractive
reserves) (Wiersum 2000). In places where states are distant, fragile or absent, local
communities control forest use (Colfer et al. 2011) based on customary rather than statutory
laws and institutions.
Drawing on these notions of forest governance, NTFP governance is defined as the
multi-stakeholder and multilevel process of interactive decision-making and creation of
institutional frameworks for the allocation, use and trade of NTFPs (Ros-Tonen & Kusters
2011; Wiersum & Endalamaw 2013). It is a specific component of forest governance that
deserves special attention because it is characterised by institutional complexity.

Diversified NTFP production systems and value chains

A defining aspect of NTFP systems is the diversity of production systems – some based on
extraction from natural forests and some on systems of cultivation. Inherent in the
acronym is that NTFPs are commonly considered as forest products, but research has made
it clear that many NTFPs are actively managed in anthropogenically adapted forests and/or
cultivated. In co-evolutionary processes, locally valued wild products have gradually, both
unintended and deliberately, been brought into the human domain (Harris & Hillman
1989; Wiersum 1997; Michon et al. 2007; Meyer et al. 2012). The resulting variety of
NTFP production systems (Table 1) includes conscious enhancement of production in
natural forests, the gradual incorporation of NTFP species into local farming systems and
their cultivation in plantations, sometimes using genetically modified cultivars. This
domestication process changes the ecological conditions because of adaptation of the
8 K.F. Wiersum et al.

Table 1. Continuum of production systems for plant-based NTFPs.

NTFP production system Example

Extraction from natural forests
Open access collection of plant and animal Brazil nuts (Bertholletia excelsa) (Brazil,
products for food, fodder, tools, construction Bolivia, Peru); honey from the wild (Central
material, medicinal products, etc. and East Africa), Okok (Gnetum africanum)
(Gabon, Cameroon, Congo), Uppage (Gar-
cinia gummi-gutta) (India), medicinal plants
Controlled access collection by marking Moabi (Baillonella toxisperma) (Cameroon)
privately claimed forest plots or trees
providing non-timber products, e.g. nuts,
fruits.
Exploitation from resource-enriched natural The three practices coexist for:
forests, swiddens and fallows
Enriching natural forests, e.g. by stimulating Fruit species, e.g. bush mango (Irvingia
natural regeneration of fruit trees gabonensis) (Cameroon); several palms
(Amazon region, West Africa, Indonesia,
Southeast Asia)
Intentionally leaving NTFP species during Condiments, e.g. wild coffee (Coffea
field clearance and in fallows Arabica) (Ethiopia); cardamom (Amomum
spp.) (Laos)
Enriching fallows through preservation or Construction material, e.g. bamboo (Bam-
planting of tree crops such as fruit species, busa spp.); raphia (Raphia spp.) (Cameroon);
trees producing resins or gums, palms or rattan (Calamus trachycoleus) (Borneo)
rattan
Exploitation from reconstructed (natural) forests
Forest gardens with a mixture of naturally Mixed fruit forest gardens (tembawang) and
regenerated wild trees and consciously rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) gardens (‘jungle
regenerated tree crops rubber’) (Indonesia); Ifugao wood lots
(Philippines)
Production in mixed arboricultural and
agricultural systems
Home garden cultivation Home garden systems (pan-tropical)
Mixed smallholder plantations Enset (Enset ventricosum Welw. Cheesman)
coffee (Coffea Arabica) home gardens
(Southern Ethiopia)
Active planting of tree species around home Damar (Shorea javanica K. & V.) forests
compounds, on farm or interstitial spaces (Indonesia)
Production in plantation systems
Intercropping in commercial tree-crop Poison arrow vine (Strophantus gratus)
plantations planted in cocoa farms (Cameroon)
Commercial tree growing in smallholder
plantations
Plantations of commercial enterprises
Source: Adapted from Wiersum (1997), Ros-Tonen (2012) and Ingram (2012a).

growing conditions and the gradual intensification of management activities. Drivers

include expanding markets (Homma & Schwartzman 1992), farmer creativity (Den
Hartog & Wiersum 2000; Michon 2005) and the influence of projects and research,
agricultural extension and changes in demand and/or product value (Arnold & Dewees
1995; Degrande et al. 2006).
Domestication processes are also greatly influenced by the prevailing governance
frameworks for the production and marketing of specific NTFPs. The concept of value
 Governing access to resources and markets in NTFP chains 9

chains (Kaplinsky & Morris 2001) symbolises the activities involved in bringing a product
from the production base to final consumers, including harvesting, cleaning, transport,
design, processing, production, transformation, packaging, marketing, distribution and
support services, and disposal. A chain can range from a local level to a global level and
may be implemented by various actors – harvesters, processors, traders, retailers and
service providers. Production and marketing systems interact; hence, three core concerns
require attention in NTFP governance. The first is the sustainability of the production base,
depending on factors such as (1) abundance of the species from which a product originates,
(2) anthropogenic and natural threats and vulnerabilities to species populations, (3)
inherent species vulnerability which depends on the part(s) harvested and (4) a species’
tolerance to harvesting (Cunningham 2001; Ticktin & Shackleton 2011). The second is
how access to specific resources and their markets is organised. Commercialisation of wild
species often negatively impacts their sustainability and conservation (Arnold & Ruı́z
Pérez 2001; Kusters et al. 2006) unless institutions effectively avoid, control and if
necessary, mitigate unsustainable exploitation and/or enhance domestication. A third core
concern is the link between forest product commercialisation and poverty; a relevant one
to address considering the estimated 1.2 billion people that to varying degrees depend on
forests for their livelihoods (World Bank 2004) and the spatial overlap between tropical
forests and the majority of the world’s rural poor (Sunderlin et al. 2008). In this respect
also benefit-sharing arrangements receive attention in NTFP governance.

Institutional complexity
Due to the multifaceted interactions between sustainability, access to resources and markets
and benefit-sharing arrangements, NTFP governance is complex. It is characterised by
multifarious institutional frameworks covering NTFP extraction, production and trade.
Institutions are ‘systems of rules, decision-making procedures, and programs that give rise to
social practices, assign roles to the participants in these practices, and guide interactions
among the occupants of the relevant roles’ (IDGEC Scientific Planning Committee 1999,
p. 14). Institutions are designed and maintained at several levels of scale, ranging from local
resource management systems to global international regimes (IDGEC Scientific Planning
Committee 1999). Formal institutions can be considered as the rules and regulations enforced
by an outside third party, such as laws. Informal institutions are upheld by socially shared,
usually unwritten rules or culturally embedded taboos, created and enforced among the actors
involved (North 1990; Leach et al. 1999; Helmke & Levitsky 2004). Both offer structure in
human relationships and clarify how to interact and what is expected from different actors
(Hodgson 2006; Kooiman et al. 2008). The institutional frameworks that govern NTFP
harvesting and trade are based on multiple and partly overlapping statutory regulation,
customary traditions and market-based norms (Woldeamanuel 2011; Derkyi 2012) (Table 2).
This implies that institutions are subject to many centres of authority (Laird et al. 2010),
involving both local and/or external organisations at various scale levels, including business,
government, policy, certification and development organisations. Specific for institutional
frameworks in NTFP governance is the combination of forestry and agricultural regimes and
separate systems for governing access to resources and markets.

Forestry and agrarian regimes

NTFPs extracted from natural forests are usually formally governed by forestry regimes,
while those produced in cultivation systems tend to fall under agrarian regimes. Regimes
10 K.F. Wiersum et al.

Table 2. Institutions in NTFP governance.

Institutional framework Types of institutions and regimes

Locally developed Regulatory institutions
Locally-embedded customary regulations concerning access to
forest resources and forest utilisation by different categories of
local people
Local informal codes of conduct for adhering to legal frameworks
Informal and customary codes regarding control of management,
trade and conflict resolution
Social institutions
Cultural identity
Norms for social collaboration and labour relations
Trust and norms concerning local leadership and external advisors
Norms related to traditional indigenous and modern production
practices
Norms for using forest products and services within livelihood
frameworks
Knowledge of locally evolved product use and management
practices
Market-based institutions
Norms concerning subsistence and commercial activities
Norms concerning access to credit and capital investment in forest
management
Voluntary adherence to market standards and certification
schemes

Developed external to the Regulatory institutions: legal frameworks

production zone Formal regulations on access to forest resources
Formal standards for forest management organisation
Formal regulations and standards concerning NTFP trade
Formal control and conflict resolution mechanisms concerning
forest management and trade
Formal norms concerning forestry and sustainable forest
management
Social institutions
Codes of conduct facilitating forest management organisations,
provision of knowledge and/or credit and technical assistance
Codes on development
Norms regarding trade and the organisation of markets and trade
Market-based institutions
Norms concerning investment capital
Informal norms concerning markets and trade in forest products,
including corruption
Voluntary standards of market organisations concerning product
quality and forest management

are defined as ‘sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making
procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area’ (Krasner 1982,
p. 186). Principles are understood as ‘beliefs of fact, causation, and rectitude’, whereas
norms are defined as ‘standards of behavior defined in terms of rights and obligations’.
Rules are specific prescriptions, and decision-making procedures are ‘prevailing practices
for making and implementing collective choice’ (Krasner 1982, p. 186). Implicit and
explicit implies that components of this institutional framework can be either formal or
informal.
 Governing access to resources and markets in NTFP chains 11

Forestry and agrarian regimes are based on different norms and principles (Fay &
Michon 2005). Forestry regimes focus on regulating the conservation and use of forest
resources, including tenure arrangements and the rules under which forest products can be
used and traded. These are usually the responsibility of centralised state agencies
(hierarchical governance). Institutional frameworks for NTFP exploitation at local level
may also include customary laws (self-governance) or co-governance arrangements with
the state aimed at benefit-sharing or (re)distribution of benefits. NTFPs sold beyond local
markets may also be subject to market-based rules, with mechanisms such as certification
operating outside the scope of statutory and customary authorities.
NTFP production in agrarian regimes (usually based on private property) is subject to a
combination of hierarchical and private governance arrangements which regulate
production processes and, sometimes, access to markets through a system of incentives
and disincentives. Access to land in agrarian regimes may be subject to customary
arrangements.

Governing access to resources and markets

With increasing market orientation, not only access to resources but also access to markets
became a critical aspect of NTFP governance. To understand the nature of NTFP
governance systems, both issues need to be considered in tandem.
Access to NTFP resources depends on the statutory and customary rules and norms
that regulate access to public, private or community-owned land on which they grow.
While influencing each other, land and tree tenure rules do not always coincide (Fortmann
& Bruce 1988; Feder & Feeny 1991). Tenure and ownership consist of bundles of rights
that include access, withdrawal, management, exclusion and alienation (Fortmann &
Bruce 1988; Schlager & Ostrom 1992). These may be held by different people at different
times and may be differentiated for land, trees and plants, and the products derived from
them. For instance, in many state forests, collecting forest products for subsistence use is
allowed, but extraction for commercialisation is prohibited or only allowed with formal
permits. Arrangements for share-cropping or renting private farmlands mostly refer to
annual crops, but not to trees which may be considered state resources. The nature of
access rights to NTFP resources greatly influences how they are managed and what
institutions (formal/statutory or informal/customary) are in place to that end (den Hertog
& Wiersum 2000; van den Berg et al. 2007) (Table 3). The locally evolved institutions
(e.g. taboos) can be gender, ethnicity, age, social status, habitat, species, product and
season specific (Colding & Folke 2001; Howard & Nabanoga 2007; Ingram et al. 2012;
Shackleton, Paumgarten et al. 2012).
Access to markets refers to the rights of actors in the chain to sell their products and share
in the benefits of NTFPs. Similar to governance arrangements controlling access to
resources, access to markets can be highly actor, product, location and context specific.
A continuum is apparent from small local transaction points and markets close to production
zones to large and distant export markets, encompassing seven market types characterised
by varying degrees of formalisation, access types, product characteristics and governance
regimes (Table 4). Again, institutional arrangements may be shaped by formal (statutory)
regulations (e.g. transportation and export permits, taxes), customary rules (e.g. local and
culture-specific customs and norms regarding who is allowed to trade a product, socially
differentiated by class, caste, gender or ethnicity), voluntary action (e.g. meeting
certification standards) and collective action (e.g. union, associations, cooperatives and
chain-wide inter-professional platforms that exert strong actor-led control over specific
12 K.F. Wiersum et al.

Table 3. Access to NTFP resources under different production systems and governance regimes.

NTFP production Main approach to Prevailing tenure

system NTFP exploitation Governance regimea situation
Gathering from natural Uncontrolled Void (open access, State forests with or
forests extraction unregulated) or without informal
customary community rights;
formal community
lands
Extraction from Controlled extraction Customary, limiting State or community
enriched forests access to certain forests with individual
places, periods or claims to specific forest
species species and/or watering
and feeding places
Extraction from recon- Maintenance and Combination of statu- Transition from
structed forests protection and limited tory and customary community rights to
regeneration private property; access
to land and trees in the
same hands
Production in mixed Purposeful regenera- Statutory Private property of land
arboriculture and agri- tion and NTFP species
culture
Production in planta- Purposeful regener- Statutory Market Private property of land
tion systems ation and breeding and NTFP species
a
Governance regimes may also be subject to collective or market-based governance regimes, e.g. if NTFPs traded
in international markets to meet certain minimum standards (hierarchical governance) or voluntary standards and
certification (co-governance).

products and markets). Examples can be found in Howard and Nabanoga (2007); Shanley
et al. (2008); Wiersum et al. (2008); Shackleton, Paumgarten et al. (2012); Paumgarten et al.
(2012) and Ingram (2102a, 2012b, this issue). Rent-seeking by corrupt government
officials often operates parallel to regulatory systems (Ndoye & Awono 2010; Ingram
et al. 2012).

Trends in NTFP governance

As a result of the interest in the scope of NTFPs as a conservation and development
resource, NTFP governance is in a process of change. Three major trends in NTFPs
governance can be distinguished: (1) the increasing formalisation of customary practices,
(2) the emergence of new formal standards for production and trade, and (3) the increasing
hybridisation.
The various efforts to stimulate sustainable NTFP trade caused a gradual formalisation
of formerly exclusively customary practices for NTFP collection, use and management,
and the creation of novel institutions. Producer and/or marketing associations,
cooperatives and enterprises were supported or created. In some cases, these organisations
may gain formal rights to access resources (e.g. concessions or community forests), but in
other cases, access to resources and markets are institutionalised under different legal
frameworks. This legal duality increases the complexity of formal, community-based
NTFP governance arrangements. It also demonstrates that decentralisation and devolution
of NTFP governance responsibility involves both recognition and formalisation of
informal institutional frameworks, as well as their embedding in externally developed
institutional arrangements.
Table 4. Institutional and governance regimes regulating access to different types of NTFP markets.
Degree of Governance
Market type formalisation Access to markets Product features regime
Type 0: Physical, forest-edge, farm-gate and village-based Informal Open, free, easy, low transaction and logistic Common species, high Customary
transactions, proximate to supply zone; direct transaction costs, low levels of competition with turnover, low unit value,
between producer/seller and buyer. producers from outside the immediate locally valued product
production area
Type I: Physical, small, local markets proximate to supply
zones with high level of self-sufficiency; high levels of local
supply and exchange; often direct transaction between
producer and consumer;
suppliers for regional and national markets.
Type II: Physical, medium-sized markets of regional Informal Open, easy, low entry barriers Common species, high Customary
importance; medium level of self-sufficiency; intermedi- turnover, low unit value Collective
aries often involved in transactions; secondary nodes for Market
Type I and intermediate markets, bulking points for Type III
markets.
Type III: Physical, large urban markets with national range Informal Formal Closed, financial and procedural entry Common and vulnerable Collective
of products and weak self-sufficiency; reliance on close and barriers (e.g. entree fee, permit), competition species, high turnover, Market
far supply areas; chain of intermediaries involved in with other production zones low and high unit values Regulated
transactions; hubs for Type I and II markets.
Type IV: Physical, border markets, highly dependent for Informal Formal Open/closed, high entry barriers Vulnerable or protected Regulated
supply on other areas; high levels of specialisation in high Illegal (regulatory, fiscal, financial, procedural), species, high unit value Collective
volume products and small-to-high transaction values; chain competitive Market
of intermediaries involved in transactions.
Type V: Internationally located, physical market or Formal Informal Open/closed, significant entry Vulnerable or Regulated
processing location, often supplied by Type IV markets, Illegal barriers (regulatory, fiscal, financial, protected species, Voluntary
dependent on distant supply zones; high levels of technical, procedural, quality, high unit value Market
specialisation in large volume of products and high logistical), competitive
transaction values; chain of intermediaries involved in
transactions.
Type VI: Markets based on non-physical contact, largely Formal Informal Open, moderate entry barriers (financial, High unit value Market
export/international dependent on distant supply zones; high Illegal technical, quality, logistical, competitive) Unregulated
Governing access to resources and markets in NTFP chains

levels of specialisation and low-to-high transaction values;

chain of intermediaries involved in non-physical transactions
with no face-to face contacts (internet, phone, media).
13
14 K.F. Wiersum et al.

Certification and quality standards for NTFPs sold internationally lead to the
emergence of new formal standards for production and trade, involving external, mostly
international, economic institutions (Laird et al. 2010). This is often a response to the
growing consumer demand for ‘green’ or socially responsible products, or products
bearing the forest identity of their production region. International agreements (e.g. the
Convention on Biodiversity Conservation) have also set standards for the ecological
integrity of and international trade in NTFPs and for access and benefit sharing (Shanley
et al. 2002). Other international standards on product quality, health and safety
(e.g. pesticide use, processing standards or organic production) originated at regional
(e.g. European Union) or national level. The requirements associated with these global
standards are often beyond the skills, means, capacity and economic and political power of
forest fringe communities, as a result of which they increasingly form alliances and
partnerships with companies and/or NGOs in order to overcome barriers of access to high-
value and niche markets (Ros-Tonen et al. 2008; Ros-Tonen & Kusters 2011).
Related to the foregoing trends, traditional NTFP governance systems are increasingly
hybridising into systems of co-governance. This parallels trends in decentralisation/
devolution and globalisation, which respectively lead to the recognition and even
formalisation of local systems for forest production and management, and to an increasing
number of international standards for NTFP production and product quality. This has
resulted in hybrid forms of governance (Agrawal et al. 2008; Arts & Visseren-Hamakers
2012). Increasing hybridisation may undermine the effectiveness of locally embedded
governance systems (Wynberg & Laird 2007; Schure et al. 2012). However, creative
processes of ‘institutional bricolage’ occur in which various pieces of governance
arrangements are adapted, melted together and reshaped into new configurations to adapt
to changing circumstances (de Koning & Cleaver 2012) as actors in the chains try to shape
them to their advantage. Such location- and time-specific forms of institutional bricolage
add further to the complexity of NTFP governance.

Discussion and conclusion

This review of NTFP governance demonstrated that hybrids of formal and informal
institutions based on statutory, customary and market norms and social, collective action
determine access along the value chain from resource to markets. The emergence of multi-
layered governance arrangements is impacted by two main issues:
(1) The coexistence of two different governance regimes: one focused on NTFP
extraction from the wild as a means of forest conservation and another focused on
NTFP production in agricultural systems as a means of livelihood improvement
and rural development. These have seen further adaptation: the forest conservation
focus of commercial NTFP extraction strategies promoted in the late 1980s has
gradually shifted to a production system focus that includes the total landscape
used by local communities to maintain their livelihoods. In this process, local
communities and actors in NTFP value chains have often been very creative in
devising forest-derived vegetation systems in which the production of NTFPs
essential for their livelihoods is actively stimulated. Such domestication involves
the continuing incorporation of NTFP production systems in social networks that
regulate access and ownership. A wide variety of systems for harvesting and
producing NTFPs now straddle the forest-plantation continuum. Local processes
of productive bricolage (Ros-Tonen 2012) have developed new forms of forested
landscapes in which different NTFP production systems can and do coexist. This
 Governing access to resources and markets in NTFP chains 15

implies the increasing amalgamation in NTFP governance of forestry regimes

focused on sustainable management and conservation, and agrarian regimes that
focus on the quality of production and commercialisation as livelihood strategies.
Calls to change the present focus of NTFP certification from specific production
systems to landscape systems should be seen within this context (Wiersum et al.
2008; Ghazoul et al. 2009).
(2) Changes from dual systems of self-governance for local markets and hierarchical
governance for commercialised NTFPs to a variety of NTFP production and co-
governance systems. Traditional NTFP governance systems based on either
informal, customary, community-based systems or formal concession-type
systems have gradually evolved into more diversified and often multi-layered
governance arrangements. Often community-based organisations have formalised
and local cooperatives and enterprises have emerged managing production and
marketing. In parallel, national and international standards and regulations
concerning product quality and production systems have proliferated in number,
scale and scope. As a result of increasing market interest in environmentally
friendly niche products from socially responsible production systems and
increased demand from diaspora in the US and Europe, there is a growing interest
in marketing NTFPs that previously were mainly locally used or sold. This trend
has led to local producer organisations becoming linked to external markets
through sometimes novel partnership arrangements involving businesses and civil
society organisations.
As a result of these developments, access to markets is now as important for local
producers as access to resources, and governance regimes for NTFPs need to balance both.
A hybrid of multi-layered, plural NTFP governance regimes subject to ongoing alteration
and aggregation has emerged, characterised by a wide diversity of actors and complex
institutional arrangements. If this is not well understood, well-intended governance
innovations may overshoot their targets and underestimate their impacts.

Note
1. A market can be physical, public gatherings and locations or non-physical places (e.g. internet)
where products are offered for sale in exchange for money or for goods or services (barter).

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