Proceedings Book / Bildiri Kitabı - Orman Fakültesi - Süleyman ...

2 nd International Non-Wood Products Symposium 8-10 September 2011 - Isparta/TURKEY
2.1.2.Weak institutional capacities of the
governmental agencies and limited technical skills
of rural forest dependent communities to manage
and benefit from NWFP use in a sustainable and
profitable way.
Increasing efficiency of forestry-based operations
has to contribute to improving the living standards
of the population, provide processed food products
for import substitution / exports; while arresting
severe forest degradation and erosion at the same
time.
Technical capacities of FD staff and forest
dependent rural communities to manage and
commercialize NWFPs profitably and sustainable
is limited by lack of appropriate institutional
support, knowledge and training. The existing
legal frameworks provide more rights to the
population to utilize the natural resources for their
subsistence use, but are still insufficient to guide
their commercial exploitation. The ability of rural
communities to participate meaningfully and
effectively in NWFP-based enterprise
development needs strengthening. Existing local
knowledge and best practices for regulating the
use of NWFP has to be improved. To better
understand improved practices for the
development of the NWFPs sector, pilot-scale test
and demonstration/training activities on key
NWFP are needed.
In Uzbekistan, production of profitable NWFP
such as herbs and honey, as examples of among
the most important NWFPs of the country, are of
low quality and with limited value-added due to
utilization of obsolete equipment and
technologies. Increasing productivity and
application of new technologies for collecting,
processing, and appropriate packing will increase
benefits for the country.
Low quality of forest products and lack of the
appropriate package are considerable obstacles
also for exporting forest products to foreign
countries. A negative impact affecting the forestry
products is lack of marketing information about
alternative markets and in particular about foreign
markets for NWFPs. This and lack of financing to
develop processing industries, lack of training on
marketing issues, problems with international
certification of the forest products produced, and
other marketing difficulties complicate trade of
NWFPs to potential foreign markets.
2.2. Stakeholders and Target Beneficiaries
This project will contribute to the staff of the DF
and of other relevant government agencies in
education, agriculture, and of other stakeholders,
including the lessees of forest lands. In the rural
communities, the ultimate beneficiaries will be
women and particularly the poorest, living in and
around the forests through improved access to
forest gathered foods and from their
commercialization. At the field level, small scale
NWFP-based producing and trading enterprises
will also directly benefit from the project and
contribute to its outputs.
2.3. Justification of the Project
Despite the fairly poor condition of the forest
cover, in terms of timber production, forest lands
still do offer various important opportunities for
the rural livelihoods. Estimations by the State
Forest Fund put the value of NWFPs presently
gathered on their lands at approximately 2 million
US$/year (mainly of Vegetables and agricultural
products; fruits, medicinal and aromatic plants;
honey; nuts and hay). This is already a significant
income and direct food contribution to poor
landless people in rural areas which allows them
to undertake further value adding processing in
village level units. Unfortunately, these nontimber
benefits are neither fully realized nor
understood by the forest administration and the
rural people. The enabling environment and
sufficient institutional capacity are lacking to
support the full development of income generation
activities and small-scale enterprises based on
NWFPs. There is therefore an urgent need to help
the Government of Uzbekistan elaborate a national
strategy that will enhance the contribution of its
NWFP sector to rural development and poverty
reduction with the involvement all stakeholders.
The effective involvement of rural communities,
benefiting from a more sustainable production and
equitable trade of NWFPs will also contribute to
better forest conservation. The project will
enhance resource productivity and harvesting
technology through increased production of
NWFPs quality material thus benefiting more the
rural people and via better processing and
marketing to help improvement of their income
derived from NWFPs.
The State Forest Enterprises do not have a
strategy, incentives or the required skills to
implement market and demand studies, neither to
optimize NWFPs production and sale procedures.
This situation is aggravated by lack of marketing
specialists, by the low NWFPs production level
and quality, by an imperfect payment system
applied to forest utilization, by a complete lack of
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