The sustainability of trade in wild plants-A data-integration approach tested on critically endangered Nardostachys jatamansi.

While the demand for many products from wild-harvested plants is growing rapidly, the sustainability of the associated plant trade remains poorly understood and understudied. We integrate ecological and trade data to advance sustainability assessments, using the critically endangered Nardostachys jatamansi in Nepal to exemplify the approach and illustrate the conservation policy gains. Through spatial distribution modeling and structured interviews with traders, wholesalers, and processors, we upscale district-level trade data to provincial and national levels and compare traded amounts to three sustainable harvest scenarios derived from stock and yield data in published inventories and population ecology studies. We find increased trade levels and unsustainable harvesting focused in specific subnational geographical locations. Data reported in government records and to CITES did not reflect estimated trade levels and could not be used to assess sustainability. Our results suggest that changing harvesting practices to promote regeneration would allow country-wide higher levels of sustainable harvests, simultaneously promoting species conservation and continued trade of substantial economic importance to harvesters and downstream actors in the production network. The approach can be applied to other plant species, with indication that quick and low-cost proxies to species distribution modeling may provide acceptable sustainability estimates at aggregated spatial levels.

A unique environmental augmented household-level livelihood panel dataset from Nepal.

This paper presents primary household-level panel data for the investigation of rural livelihoods dynamics in Nepal. The data is environmental augmented through the inclusion of information on environmental resource use allowing estimation of household-level environmental income. The main variables included are: household demographics (individual's age, gender, educational status, marital status), assets (livestock, implements, land, jewellery, saving, debt), income (from the environment, crop production, livestock rearing, business ownership, wage employment, remittances, and other sources), and household shock experiences (e.g., crop failure or livestock loss). Spanning the three main physiographic regions in Nepal, data was collected in the districts of Chitwan (lowland), Kaski (mid-hills), and Mustang (mountains) in 2006 (n = 507), 2009 (n = 446), and 2012 (n = 428), with households randomly sampled, using trained and monitored enumerators. The structured household survey is freely available in Larsen et al. (2014) that also provides complete data collection process details. In each study year, household income data were collected quarterly (using recall periods of 1 or 3 months, depending on the product), while asset data was collected twice (at the beginning and end of each year). Farm-gate prices were used to value products whenever possible; subsistence products were valued using substitute product prices or the opportunity cost of time (i.e., local wage labour rate). Basic distributional statistics indicated that estimated values have acceptable properties allowing their use as prices. The dataset can be reused for analyses across a range of topics (e.g. focused on forests or livestock), data types (e.g. income or asset), and temporal scales (static or selected years).

Patterns of change: The dynamics of medicinal plant trade in far-western Nepal.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Combined quantitative and qualitative environmental product trade studies, undertaken in the same location over time, are instrumental in identifying plant species with commercial demand and explaining what drives temporal changes. Yet such dynamic studies are rare, including for Himalayan medicinal plants that have been large-scale traded for millennia. AIM OF THE STUDY: To (i) investigate changes in medicinal plant trade in the past 17 years, and (ii) identify the main factors driving changes, using a study of Darchula District in far-western Nepal. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Medicinal plant production network data were collected from March to August 2016, for the fiscal year 2014-15, for Darchula District in far-western Nepal through 167 quantitative (58 harvesters, 38 sub-local traders, 25 local traders, 25 central wholesalers, and 21 regional wholesalers), 61 qualitative (15 sub-local traders, 19 local traders, 15 central wholesalers, and 12 regional wholesalers) interviews, and four focus group discussions. Results were compared to previously unpublished similar data for Darchula District for the year 1997-98, using quantitative and qualitative interviews with 10 local traders, 20 central wholesalers, and 53 regional wholesalers. Data analysis was guided by an analytical framework derived from Global Production Network theory. Quantitative data were used to estimate changes in 12 indicators while the qualitative information allowed identification of the factors driving observed changes in the indicators. RESULTS: The volume of medicinal plants traded from Darchula District in the fiscal year 2014-15 was 401 t with a harvester value of USD 5.5 million, representing a 2.3 fold increase in volume and 17.2 fold increase in value compared to 1997-98. Trade in the two observation years comprised 30 air-dried plant products (from 28 identified species as well as lichens and a mineral substance); 12 products were traded in both periods, while seven disappeared, and 11 new products entered the trade. The number of traders increased from 10 to 63, mainly due to the emergence of a single high value product yarsagumba (Ophiocordyceps sinensis), a fungus-caterpillar complex which alone contributed 85% of total trade value. Over the observed time period, harvesters and traders increased their margins at the cost of central wholesalers, indicating that market changes favoured lower tier actors, eroding the previously identified passive central wholesaler oligopsony in Nepal. Important drivers of market changes are: (i) rising incomes in China and India, expressed through demand for new products and increasing per unit prices for a range of products, (ii) expanding infrastructure (roads and telecommunications) towards and into harvesting sites, reducing transport costs and increasing market efficiency, and (iii) government interventions, causing disappearance of some species from trade. These market changes also led to increased cultivation at lower altitudes, and a sharp increase in the number of processor industries in Nepal. CONCLUSION: Trade in medicinal plant products in far-western Nepal in the past two decades has increased substantially, doubling in volume and increasing 17 fold in value. There is a backbone of constantly traded species but also species that disappear from trade and new species that enter. Changes favour harvesters and traders at the benefit of central wholesalers whose previous passive oligopsony is disappearing. The three main drivers of change are rising incomes in China and India, expanding infrastructure, and government interventions in Nepal. Commercial medicinal plant resources are a substantial asset that appears to offer opportunities for economic development in far-western Nepal. The trade, however, may pose sustainability threats that are best understood by combining species-level biophysical, trade, and consumer studies.

High altitude organic gold: The production network for Ophiocordyceps sinensis from far-western Nepal.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Ophiocordyceps sinensis (Berk.) G.H.Sung, J.M.Sung, Hywel-Jones & Spatafora, a high altitude Himalayan fungus-caterpillar product found in alpine meadows in China, Bhutan, Nepal, and India, has been used in the Traditional Chinese Medicine system for over 2000 years. Heightened demand in China over the past 15 years, coupled with limited production, has led to a price hike and increased economic importance of harvests to rural households throughout the species' range. There is, however, limited knowledge on the actors and profit distribution in the O. sinensis production network, especially from the distribution areas on the southern flanks of the Himalayas. Filling in this knowledge gap is essential to the identification and design of public interventions. AIM OF THE STUDY: To describe and quantify the O. sinensis production network originating from Darchula District in far-western Nepal. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data was collected, for fiscal year 2014-15, in spring and summer 2016 using standardized collector (n=56) and trader (n=45) questionnaires in Darchula District, and central wholesaler (n=9) questionnaires in cities of Nepal. All questionnaires contained quantitative and qualitative components focusing on key elements of the production network, i.e. value creation, enhancement, and capture; and network and territorial embeddedness. RESULTS: Trade is sustained and significant even at the margins of the distributional range, with 384.1 kg of O. sinensis harvested in and traded from Darchula District in 2014-15, having a collector value of approximately USD 4.7 million and constituting the dominant household-level source of income for collectors. The functioning production network is characterised by conflicts in relation to value creation, a high share of value capture by collectors, limited value enhancement, and a high degree of network and territorial embeddedness. CONCLUSIONS: O. sinensis income is of major economic importance for rural households at the margin of its distribution range in Nepal. Production networks operated by informal actors establishing trust-based relationships allow responses to cross-border market signals, enabling the flow of rural and remote environmental resources to urban centres of demand. There is scope for public interventions, e.g. to determine the drivers of demand.

Indirect approach for estimation of forest degradation in non-intact dry forest: modelling biomass loss with Tweedie distributions.

BACKGROUND: Implementation of REDD+ requires measurement and monitoring of carbon emissions from forest degradation in developing countries. Dry forests cover about 40 % of the total tropical forest area, are home to large populations, and hence often display high disturbance levels. They are susceptible to gradual but persistent degradation and monitoring needs to be low cost due to the low potential benefit from carbon accumulation per unit area. Indirect remote sensing approaches may provide estimates of subsistence wood extraction, but sampling of biomass loss produces zero-inflated continuous data that challenges conventional statistical approaches. We introduce the use of Tweedie Compound Poisson distributions from the exponential dispersion family with Generalized Linear Models (CPGLM) to predict biomass loss as a function of distance to nearest settlement in two forest areas in Tanzania. RESULTS: We found that distance to nearest settlement is a valid proxy variable for prediction of biomass loss from fuelwood collection (p < 0.001) and total subsistence wood extraction (p < 0.01). Biomass loss from commercial charcoal production did not follow a spatial pattern related to settlements. CONCLUSIONS: Distance to nearest settlement seems promising as proxy variable for estimation of subsistence wood extraction in dry forests in Tanzania. Tweedie GLM provided valid parameters from the over-dispersed continuous biomass loss data with exact zeroes, and observations with zero biomass loss were successfully included in the model parameters.

Environmental Income and Rural Livelihoods: A Global-Comparative Analysis.

This paper presents results from a comparative analysis of environmental income from approximately 8000 households in 24 developing countries collected by research partners in CIFOR's Poverty Environment Network (PEN). Environmental income accounts for 28% of total household income, 77% of which comes from natural forests. Environmental income shares are higher for low-income households, but differences across income quintiles are less pronounced than previously thought. The poor rely more heavily on subsistence products such as wood fuels and wild foods, and on products harvested from natural areas other than forests. In absolute terms environmental income is approximately five times higher in the highest income quintile, compared to the two lowest quintiles.

Rural income and forest reliance in highland Guatemala.

This paper estimates rural household-level forest reliance in the western highlands of Guatemala using quantitative methods. Data were generated by the way of an in-depth household income survey, repeated quarterly between November 2005 and November 2006, in 11 villages (n = 149 randomly selected households). The main sources of income proved to be small-scale agriculture (53 % of total household income), wages (19 %) and environmental resources (14 %). The latter came primarily from forests (11 % on average). In the poorest quintile the forest income share was as high as 28 %. All households harvest and consume environmental products. In absolute terms, environmental income in the top quintile was 24 times higher than in the lowest. Timber and poles, seeds, firewood and leaf litter were the most important forest products. Households can be described as 'regular subsistence users': the share of subsistence income is high, with correspondingly weak integration into regional markets. Agricultural systems furthermore use important inputs from surrounding forests, although forests and agricultural uses compete in household specialization strategies. We find the main household determinants of forest income to be household size, education and asset values, as well as closeness to markets and agricultural productivity. Understanding these common but spatially differentiated patterns of environmental reliance may inform policies aimed at improving livelihoods and conserving forests.

People, plants and health: a conceptual framework for assessing changes in medicinal plant consumption.

BACKGROUND: A large number of people in both developing and developed countries rely on medicinal plant products to maintain their health or treat illnesses. Available evidence suggests that medicinal plant consumption will remain stable or increase in the short to medium term. Knowledge on what factors determine medicinal plant consumption is, however, scattered across many disciplines, impeding, for example, systematic consideration of plant-based traditional medicine in national health care systems. The aim of the paper is to develop a conceptual framework for understanding medicinal plant consumption dynamics. Consumption is employed in the economic sense: use of medicinal plants by consumers or in the production of other goods. METHODS: PubMed and Web of Knowledge (formerly Web of Science) were searched using a set of medicinal plant key terms (folk/peasant/rural/traditional/ethno/indigenous/CAM/herbal/botanical/phytotherapy); each search terms was combined with terms related to medicinal plant consumption dynamics (medicinal plants/health care/preference/trade/treatment seeking behavior/domestication/sustainability/conservation/urban/migration/climate change/policy/production systems). To eliminate studies not directly focused on medicinal plant consumption, searches were limited by a number of terms (chemistry/clinical/in vitro/antibacterial/dose/molecular/trial/efficacy/antimicrobial/alkaloid/bioactive/inhibit/antibody/purification/antioxidant/DNA/rat/aqueous). A total of 1940 references were identified; manual screening for relevance reduced this to 645 relevant documents. As the conceptual framework emerged inductively, additional targeted literature searches were undertaken on specific factors and link, bringing the final number of references to 737. RESULTS: The paper first defines the four main groups of medicinal plant users (1. Hunter-gatherers, 2. Farmers and pastoralists, 3. Urban and peri-urban people, 4. Entrepreneurs) and the three main types of benefits (consumer, producer, society-wide) derived from medicinal plants usage. Then a single unified conceptual framework for understanding the factors influencing medicinal plant consumption in the economic sense is proposed; the framework distinguishes four spatial levels of analysis (international, national, local, household) and identifies and describes 15 factors and their relationships. CONCLUSIONS: The framework provides a basis for increasing our conceptual understanding of medicinal plant consumption dynamics, allows a positioning of existing studies, and can serve to guide future research in the area. This would inform the formation of future health and natural resource management policies.