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Economic valuation of non-marketed wild edible plants in Thailand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2006

CLAUDIO O. DELANG
CLAUDIO O. DELANG*
Affiliation:
Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University, Yoshida, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan Tel: +81(0)75-7537327, Fax: +81(0)75-7537350 e-mail: delang@cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp
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Tropical forests can provide forest dwellers with a sizable proportion of their dietary needs. Yet, many development and conservation organizations tend to disregard these opportunities, promoting market-oriented reforms that aim at introducing cash crops and markets for non- timber forest products (NTFPs) in the name of poverty alleviation and/or biodiversity conservation. In so doing, they help relegate wild food plants to the position of food for the poor (De Beer & McDermott 1996; Neumann & Hirsch 2000), reserve food in case of famine (Takasaki et al. 2004), or food supplementing that produced on farm plots (Ousseynou & Tieguhong 2004). This comment discusses the economic rationale for the consumption of wild edible plants by forest-dwelling communities, comparing the results obtained from two methods of evaluation. The paper is based on one month of fieldwork during December 2004 carried out by the author together with Theresa Wong and two specially-trained research assistants in Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary (Western Thailand).

Type
Comment
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , December 2005 , pp. 285 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2006

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