Use of non-timber forest products by households in the Daniel Boone National Forest region

This study explored harvesting of non-timber forest products as a livelihood activity of rural households in the Central Appalachian region of Kentucky in and around the Daniel Boone National Forest. We collected qualitative and quantitative data by following the concept of grounded theory to examine who engages in harvesting activity and why, how they access forestlands held under government and private ownerships, and their resource use practices. A wide diversity of households and individuals, and their complex relationships with these resources were identified. However, primarily households from low socioeconomic strata rely on them more for consumption, income and mutual aid. This research attempted to examine household members’ ability to use these resources given the totality of rights and opportunities they face. The results suggest multiple mechanisms of access to forest resources held under private and public ownership. However, households rely more on private forestlands than the national forest. This is primarily due to the pattern of landownership and institutional mechanisms regulating access to national forestland. We examined the resource use practices adopted by harvesters. The result shows the presence of a number of appropriate resource use practices for conservation of ginseng. Such practices include temporal restriction of harvest, protection of vulnerable life stage, area rotation, nurturing sources of renewal through artificial regeneration and retention of mature plants, and monitoring of resource abundance and change in population