Economic value of non-timber forest products utilized by the households adjacent to the South Nandi forest reserve in Kenya

ABSTRACT Many rural dwellers in tropical regions depend on non-timber forest products (NTFPs) for their livelihood and income requirements. However, the link between the economic benefits of NTFPs and their resource base (including local availability and sustainability) and sources are poorly understood. Understanding the dependence on NTFPs requires an economic valuation to improve on sustainable utilization and planning of NTFP resources in the forest. Further, NTFPs are undervalued and not be included in the national accounts therefore lowers overall contribution of forests to the GDP. The current study, therefore, estimated the value NTFPs from The South Nandi forest reserve, using a combination of methods. Twenty-two NTFPs and associated plant species used were cited in Focused Group Discussion, but it was firewood, grazing and medicinal plants that were mostly utilized. The collection of NTFPs took 54.5% of the households’ productive time suggesting high dependence on them. The economic value of NTFP extraction household−1 yr−1 was US$ 579.51. The annual firewood extraction was 7 285.4 ± 1 586.9 kg household−1 and households spent an average of 2.9 ± 1.2 hours to collect a headload of firewood. The net economic value for grazing cattle in the forest yr−1 household−1 ranged from US$ 11.6 to US$ 205.0. NTFPs contributed between 32.7% and 48.7% to households’ income confirming the importance of NTFPs to their livelihoods. This forest should be managed based on the principles of sustainable forest management for continued provision of these benefits.