Protecting the Rights of Farmers and Communities While Securing Long Term Market Access for Producers of Non-Timber Forest Products: Experience in Southern Africa

The Contribution of Forests and Trees to Sustainable Diets

“…A case of successful promotion of sustainable trade is represented by PhytoTrade Africa, the commercial name used by the Southern African Natural Products Trade Association, a membershipbased organization established in 2001 to promote linkages between producers of NWFPs and global markets [119]. PhytoTrade Africa focuses on building value chains for a large variety of products, trying to ensure a reliable and efficient supply chain configuration, from primary producers to commercial partners.…”

“…Pierre, Dacryodes edulis (G.Don) and Irvingia gabonensis (Aubrey-Lecomte ex O'Rorke) Baill., showed that domestication of indigenous tree species should be conceived together with value chains to obtain tangible positive impacts [48,[119][120][121]. The incentives for domestication of indigenous trees depend on whether farmers can sell their produce in new or expanded markets.…”

Domestication of Indigenous Fruit and Nut Trees for Agroforestry in the Solomon Islands

“…Under the FACT Project initiative, oil is also extracted from Canarium Downloaded by [Australian National University] at 10:49 05 January 2015 nuts for the food and pharmaceutical industries. These developments are in line with the ideas of developing a Melanesian supply chain for indigenous nuts (Bunt and Leakey 2008) thereby creating new commodities for export in the region, as is starting to be done in Africa with other indigenous fruits and nuts (Lombard and Leakey 2010). Maraghoto Holdings Co Ltd. also works in collaboration with other local projects, such as the AusAID funded Fruit and Nut Trees Propagation and Distribution (FNTPD) Project and the European Union funded Schools Agro-Woodlot Pilot (SAWP) Project in partnership with the Sustainable Forestry and Conservation Program (SFCP).…”

Agroforestry: Participatory Domestication of Trees

“…To shut out casual and opportunistic competitors, it is obviously important to do as much as possible to ensure that the supply chains leading up to the manufacture of the products are efficient, competitive, and as well protected as possible. Innovative approaches to ensuring that farmers and local communities are rewarded for their innovations have been developed by PhytoTrade Africa (Lombard and Leakey, 2010). It has been engaged in addressing the sustainable commercialization of natural products produced by indigenous plants, especially the trees of the Miombo woodlands.…”

“…In implementing this strategy, it is of great importance to recognize the legal and socially important communal rights of local people to their TK and local germplasm (Lombard and Leakey, 2010) and to ensure that they benefit from their use and are rewarded for sharing them for the wider good. Because of the sensitivity arising from past commercial exploitation of these rights by individuals, companies, academics, international agencies, and government, it is very clear that the partners in domestication programs have to earn the trust of local communities before TK and germplasm is made freely available.…”