Governing access to resources and markets in non-timber forest product chains

Non-timber forest product (NTFP) governance is a recent concept denoting the process of rule and decision-making concerning production and marketing. This paper reviews the multiple dimensions of and recent trends in NTFP governance. It emphasises that NTFP governance is more than rule-making and includes a broader societal process based on social practices, values and principles. This process is characterised by the coexistence of formal and informal institutions based on plural statutory, customary and market norms; the combination of forestry and agrarian regimes; multilevel and multi-actor involvement in many – but usually not all – of these arrangements; and largely separate institutions that govern access to resources and markets. NTFP governance is characterised by an increasingly complex and dynamic hybrid of institutional arrangements, norms and collective social practices and by cross-scale dynamics in space and over time