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Poverty and spatial dimensions of non-timber forest extraction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

ALEJANDRO LÓPEZ-FELDMAN  and
JAMES E. WILEN
ALEJANDRO LÓPEZ-FELDMAN*
Affiliation:
Escuela de Economía, Universidad de Guanajuato, Campus UCEA-Marfil, Guanajuato, México, 36250. Email: lopezfeldman@gmail.com
JAMES E. WILEN
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis, USA. Email: wilen@primal.ucdavis.edu
*
*Corresponding author. Financial support was provided at various stages of this research by Mexico's Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT), the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UCMEXUS) and the Institute of International Education's Programa Regional de Becas de Posgrado en Ciencias Sociales. We thank participants at the 9th Occasional Workshop on Environmental and Natural Resource Economics (Santa Barbara, 2006), the International Conference on Economics of Poverty, Environment and Natural Resource Use (Wageningen, 2006), and at seminars at UDLA-P, and University of Guanajuato. The authors acknowledge helpful comments from three anonymous referees of this journal and from the guest editor of this special issue.
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Abstract

Conservationists promote non-timber forest products (NTFP) to simultaneously alleviate poverty and conserve ecosystems. Unfortunately, little is known about how such products actually contribute to poverty alleviation, or how various complementary policies such as green marketing campaigns or cooperative management might impact resource health and users' welfare. This paper develops a simple NTFP extraction model that focuses on spatial and labor market dimensions of use in both managed and unmanaged settings. The model contrasts patterns of spatial use, resource health, and income generation under open access and community-managed institutions. We then test the conceptual model by investigating the case of xate production in the rainforest of Chiapas, Mexico, using survey work conducted over two separate periods. The empirical investigation reveals spatial patterns and labor market outcomes predicted by the model. We find NTFP use is mainly conducted by households with low opportunity costs of time and fewer income generation opportunities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 13 , Issue 5: THE ECONOMICS OF POVERTY, ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCE USE , October 2008 , pp. 621 - 642
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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