Role of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in sustaining forest-based livelihoods: a case study of Ribdi village of West Sikkim, India

The study aimed at documenting the indigenous knowledge on the use of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) by thelocal community of Ribdi village, West Sikkim, India. It also assesses the information on the important and frequently citedspecies for future sustainable management. The information was gathered through semi-structured interviews andquestionnaire based household surveys. A total of 61 species belonging to 56 genera and 36 families were reported to beused as NTFPs. Asteraceae, Athyriaceae and Lauraceae were the dominating families with 4 species each with mainly treetype growth forms (47%). The highest numbers of species were used for medicinal purpose in curing many diseases andailments. The Informant consensus factor (ICF) revealed the most used category among all, i.e., construction and handicrafts(0.62). The present study has thus documented the maximum use of Lithocarpus pachyphyllus, among all the species withhighest value of Relative Frequency Citation (RFC) and Use Value (UV). In this investigation, local community dependenceon forest resources for nutrition, health, food, and other daily use products was significant. This signifies the richcommunity knowledge about these resources. In addition, enhancing the capacity and awareness of local communities inNTFPs conservation, sustainable harvesting and value addition through training techniques can aid in sustainabledevelopment of the region