Pogramme: M.Sc.(Environmental Science) Course: Natural Resource Management Semester: II Code: MSESC2003C04
Topic:Topic: ForestForest ProductsProducts
Note: These materials are only for classroom teaching purpose at Central University of South Bihar. All the data/figures/materials are taken from several research articles/e-books/text books including Wikipedia and other online resources. ForestForest ProductsProducts Contents
• Introduction
• Non-Timber Forest Products
• Classification of Forebst Product
• Types of Forest Products
• References Introduction
• There are a great variety of products harvested from forest are non-timber based.
• Various terms have been used to describe non-timber forest products.
• Many products have long tradition in human history as do timber products.
• For example: Hunters and gatherers collected non-timber forest products long before they
had the technology to cut timber.
• The term non-timber forest product(NTFP) will be used to describe products generated
from the forest that are not timber based. Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs)
• Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are goods of biological origin other than timber from natural,
modified or managed forested landscapes.
• They include fruits and nuts, vegetables, medicinal plants, gum and resins, essences, bamboo,
rattans and palms; fibres and flosses, grasses, leaves, seeds, mushrooms, honey and lac, etc.
• The NTFPs can also be referred to as all the resources or products that may be extracted from
forest ecosystem and are utilized within the household or marketed or have social, cultural or
religious significance.
• The NTFPs create high economic value and large-scale employment.
• In India, NTFPs contribute an income equivalent to US$ 2.7 billion per year and absorb 55% of
total employment in forestry sector. Classification of Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs)
The NTFPs can be classified into different categories, based on:
• purpose of use (for e.g., as food, fuel, medicine, household utensils, and farm
implements);
•the part of plants harvested (leaf, fruit, stem and roots), and
•level of use (self supporting and commercial). Types of NTFPs
The important NTFPs of economic value in India can be categorized as following:
1.Edible products
2.Grasses, bamboos and canes
3.Tan and Dyesb
4.Essential Oils
5.Gums and Resins
6.Drugs, medicine, and spices
7.Fibres and Flosses
8.Leaves
9.Animal Products 1. Edible Products 1. Edible Products
• Fruits, flowers, seeds, roots, rhizomes, tubers, etc., of several forest species are edible.
•Fruits like mango, jujube, wood-apple, berries, etc and seeds of cashew, tamarind, java plum, goose berry, almond, etc; flowers of mahua, green pods of drumstick tree, etc are important edible products.
•Fungi, particularly mushrooms, are the perhaps the most well known and documented edible forest products.
2. Grasses, bamboos and canes
Forests provide grazing facility to about 30 per cent of the total livestock population of the country.
∑Grasses
•Grasses such as Cenchrus, Lasiurus, Heteropogon, Bothriochloa, Andropogon, Eragrostis, Iseilema, etc. are abundantly found in the forest as a ground cover. Some grasses like sabai (Eulaliopsis binata) are also used for rope and papermaking. •The roots of khus grass are used for making cooling screens.
•Munj, a tall grass is used for making chicks, stools, chairs, etc. and the leaves are twisted into strings.
∑Bamboos
•India is very rich in bamboo resources. It is woody, perennial and tall.
•More than 100 species of bamboo grow in the Indian forests covering an area of over one lakh sq. km.
•Bamboo is called the poor man’s timber as it provides cheap material for roofing, walling, flooring, matting, basketry, cordage, cathodes and a host of other things.
•The bamboo is used for housing, for rural agricultural works, for paper pulp, for packaging and other uses.
•Young tender culms are eaten; the seed is collected and eaten as grain. Contd…
∑ Canes
•Canes grows abundantly in moist forests of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Karnataka,
Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Nagaland , Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and
Mizoram. These are the major producers of cane in India.
•Some parts of Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa are suitable for growth for cane.
•It is mainly used for making strings, ropes, mats, bags, baskets, furniture, walking sticks, umbrella handles, sports goods, etc. 2. Grasses, Bamboos and Canes
Grasses Bamboos Canes
Source: www.google.com 3. Tan and Dyes
∑ Tannins
•Tannins are secretion products of plant tissue. A variety of vegetable tanning material are produced in the forest.
•Tanning materials are used in leather industry.
•Important and commonly used tanning materials include the myrobalan nuts and bark of wattle (Acacia mearnsii,
A. decurrens, A. nilotica and Cassia auriculata, etc.).
•Other tanning materials include, leaves of Indian gooseberry-amla (Emblica officinalis) and Axal wood tree- dhaura (Anogeissus latifolia), bark of Karra (Cleistanthus collinus)-a poisonous plant, fruits of Kath ber (Ziziphus xylopyra), bark of Amaltas (Cassia fistula), Assan-Indian Laurel (Terminalia alata), Arjun tree (T. arjuna), etc. ∑Dyes
• Some important dyes are obtained from red sander (bright red), Khair
(chocolate), flowers of Palas,fruits of Kamala tree or Kumkum tree (Mallotus
phillipinsis), bark of wattle and roots of Indian mulberry (Morinda tinctoria)
Wattle (Tannin) Kumkum Tree
(Dye) 4. Essential Oils
• A large number of plants and trees which grow in Indian forests contain several types of oils which are used to manufacture soaps, cosmetics, confectionary and pharmaceutical preparations, etc.
•Commercially important oils are obtained from sandalwood, lemon grass, khus and eucalyptus globulus.
Sandal wood Lemon grass
Source: www.google.com 5. Gums and Resins
∑msGu
•Gums are exuded from the stems or other parts of different trees. Partly as a natural phenomenon and by incision or injury to the bark of wood or blazing the tree.
•The most important gum is Karaya, obtained from Sterculia urens or S. villosa trees of deciduous forests.
•It is mainly used in textiles, cosmetics, confectionery, medicines, inks, pastes, cigar, etc.
•Madhya Pradesh is the largest producer of gums in India. A large proportion of Indian gums are exported to the USA, the UK and France. ∑Resins
• Resin is mainly obtained from Chir pine which grows in the Himalayan region in
Arunachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and some parts
of Punjab.
• Crude resin consists of a liquid known as oil of turpentine (25%) and a solid called
resin (75%). They are separated after distillation.
• Turpentine is mainly used as a solvent for paints and varnish, synthetic camphor, pine
oil, disinfectants, pharmaceutical preparations, wax, boot polish and industrial
perfumes.
• Resin is an important raw material for several industries of paper, paint, varnish, soap,
rubber, water proofing, linoleum, oils, greases, adhesive tape, phenyl, plastics, etc. 5. Gums and Resins
1.Sterculia urens (gum plant) and a important gum Karaya extraction from the plant
2.Chir pine (resin plant ) and extraction of resin from the plant
Source: www.google.com 6. Drugs, Medicines and Spices
∑ Drugs
•Thousands of drugs are obtained from fruits, flowers, roots, stems and leaves of different types of trees, plants and herbs.
•Quinine is the most important drug obtained from Indian forests.
∑Medicines
•The forests in India is the principal repository of large number of medicinal and aromatic plants, which are largely collected as raw materials for manufacture of medicines (drugs).
•Roots of ashwagandha, semal, dhatura, sarpgandha, morphal etc; leaves of ban nimbu, dhatura, etc and whole plant of jakhya, bajarbhang, latjira, etc used as medicinal products. ∑Spices
• Spices are used to add aroma or pungency to food to flavour certain dishes.
• The important spices are galangal, cinnamon or dalchini, lesser cardamom (chhoti ilayachi),
greater cardamom (bari ilayachi), etc.
1. Quinine (drug plant) 2. Ashwagandha (medicinal plant) 3. Cardamom
(spice)
Source: www.google.com 7. Fibres and Flosses
•A wide range of plants, yielding fibre occur in the forests of India.
•Fibres are obtained from the tissues of different parts of certain woody trees. Most of such fibres are coarse and are used for making cloth, rope and cordage. However, the fibre of Calotropis spp. Is fine, strong and silky which is used for making fishing nets. Other fibres including jute, cotton, etc.
•Flosses are obtained from certain fruits and are used for stuffing pillows, mattresses, etc.
1. Fibre from Calotropis and Cotton plant 2. Silk Floss plant
Source: www.google.com 8. Leaves
• Different types of leaves are obtained from the trees and are used for different purposes.
•The most important being the tendu leaves used as wrappers for bidis.
• The tendu tree grows in large numbers in Madhya Pradesh , Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan,
Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. About 6 lakh tonnes of tendu leaves are produced every year in India.
•Leaves of Bauhinia vahlii, Shorea robusta, Pterospermum acerifolium, etc. are converted into plates and leaf cups and are also used as wrappers by vendors of sweets as “dona”.
• 1. Tendu leaves
• 2. Shorea robusta
• Source: www.google.com 9. Animal Products
• Lac is the most important animal product obtained from the forests.
•It is secreted by a minute insect (Laccifer lacca) which feeds on the saps of a large variety of trees like palash, peepul, kusum, sissoo, sisir, kul, gular, ber, banyan, jujuba and ghont.
•These trees grow extensively in the Chhota Nagpur plateau of Jharkhand, eastern districts of Madhya Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh, western border areas of West Bengal, eastern part of Maharashtra, northern districts of Orissa and to a lesser extent in Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Punjab.
•India practically holds a monopoly in the production of lac. The current annual production of lac in India is about
18.5 thousand tonnes which is about 85 per cent of the world production.
•At present it is widely used in medicines, plastics, electrical insulation material, dyeing silk, making bangles, paints, sealing wax, gramophone records, leather and wood finishing, ornamental articles, etc. Contd…
• The other animal products are honey, wax, silk moths, horns and hides of dead animals, ivory, antlers of deer, etc.
1. Lac (important animal product) 2. Honey produced by bee 3. Ivory
Source: www.google.com References
• Scialert.net- Research Journal of Forestry (Non-Timber Forest Products for Sustained Livelihood: Challenges
and Strategies by A. K. Pandey, Y.C. Tripathi and Ashwani Kumar)
• Research Gate: Forest Product Journal (Non-Timber Forest Products: The other forest products by James
Chamberlain and A. L. Hammet
• Fienvis.nic.in Minor Forest Products Useful in Livelihood Generation- ENVIS Centre on Forestry
• yourarticlelibrary.com – Forest Products: 9 Minor forest products (or Non-Timber forest product) of India