Abstract
Non-timber forest products (NTFP) represent key sources of cash and subsistence income for millions of rural and indigenous peoples living in tropical developing countries throughout the world. The current study investigates the use and significance of NTFP within a sample of Peninsular Malaysia’s Orang Asli (indigenous people). Data collected via household surveys across three sampling phases reveals that more than 75% of the population is actively engaged in NTFP collection. Household responses indicate diversity in both the types and uses of products collected. NTFP collection participation, frequency of collection, and collection reliance are found to be significantly negatively related to village proximity to the market, as well as to income level relative to the Malaysian poverty line. When collection variables are examined by different product categories, relationships with market access and income group are variable. Implications for different approaches to forest conservation and rural development are discussed.
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Notes
The Orang Asli are the indigenous people of Peninsular Malaysia (pop. 105,000).
Details of the variable formation process are described in Howell (2006).
Compared with household income survey research that relies on single sampling time-points, this averaged dataset may be less prone to over- or underemphasizing seasonal or anomalous productivity or behaviors.
From a general definition, forests are located near all of these villages. In this sense, distance to market is not inversely related to distance to the forest. However, the abundance of forested land within a particular radius increases with increasing distance from the market, and as area devoted to plantations and development decreases. In this sense, distance to the market varies inversely with level of access to less depleted forested land.
The costs of inputs were not computed or included in this calculation, as accurate information on inputs was not available. Most inputs involved household labor and little capital.
The mean monthly income share supplied by each source for each household was computed as: Mean aggregated monthly income from source/Mean aggregated total monthly income.
Respondent approximations of the length of average collection trips were used to estimate total person-hours devoted by each household to collecting each product. A rough estimate of the NTFP average value product of labor was computed by dividing total income (cash plus subsistence) from each product by the total number of hours spent collecting that product. These average value products of labor were the lowest for construction materials, mammals, and fruits, and were the highest for frogs, reptiles, herbs and resins.
The fruits category combined fruits, vegetables, and legumes. These products were used for both cash and subsistence, and were collected seasonally. The construction materials category included rattans, bamboo, and palm branches collected for building dwellings and making crafts. Specialty plant products such as resins, gaharu, medicinal herbs, and spices were combined to form the herbs and resins category. Amphibians, terrapin, tortoises, snakes, and monitor lizards were collected for sale and were grouped into a frogs and reptiles category. All other hunting comprised the mammals category, which tended to be hunted for home consumption.
Given the proximity of the sampled households to the Krau Wildlife Preserve the relatively sparse data on hunting may have been due to a reluctance to declare animal species under protection status (e.g., pangolin).
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Jah Hut families who participated in the surveys as well as the students from the University of Malaya who conducted the interviews and compiled the datasets. This research was made possible by governmental support from the Economic Planning Unit of the Prime Minister’s Department in Malaysia and grant support from the University of California Pacific Rim Research Program. Assistance and permission to do research in this region were granted from the Department of Orang Asli Affairs (JHEOA).
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Howell, C.J., Schwabe, K.A. & Samah, A.H.A. Non-timber forest product dependence among the Jah Hut subgroup of Peninsular Malaysia’s Orang Asli. Environ Dev Sustain 12, 1–18 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-008-9176-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-008-9176-x