Women's Involvement in the Collection, Management, and Marketing of Nontimber Forest Products in West Bengal

The results of a study carried out in West Bengal show the importance of nontimber forest products to women:

• Three times as many women as men are involved in the gathering of NTFPs.

• Consumption of NTFPs is equal by women and men.

• Processing of NTFPs is exclusive to women.

• Twice as many women as men are involved in the marketing of NTFPs.

• Seventy-one species are collected exclusively by women; 23 exclusively by men, and 10 species by both.

• NTFPs account for 20 percent of household income.

• Women are mainly responsible for the manufacture of plates made from sal leaves.

• Women are mainly responsible for about 75 percent of the marketing of mushrooms, fruits, mahua flowers, and liquor.

• Men are mainly responsible for marketing of leaf plates, kendu leaves, and mats.

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Joint Forest Management: Concepts and Opportunities. Proceedings of the National Workshop at Surjkund, August 1992. Society of Promotion of Wastelands Development, New Delhi.

NTFPs also serve as a base for alternative sources of income through small-scale processing enterprises. Value-added processing can dramatically increase the income derived from forest products while reducing direct dependence on forest resource extraction. In the Philippines, for example, Philippine Business for Social Progress has developed a program to provide upland farmers with financial assistance, training in product processing, and analysis of market opportunities for rattan. PAKISAMA, a farmers' organization, is working with coconut tenant farmers in the southern Philippines to develop products for use in mattresses, upholstery materials, erosion control mats, and fiberboard.

In West Bengal, the Centre for Women's Development Studies (CWDS) has helped establish a network of village women's societies that are involved in a range of forest-based or wasteland-based, income-generating activities. The first group began