Increasing community income through cultivation of various forestry business commodities

Abstract

Suharti S. 2015. Increasing community income through cultivation of various forestry business commodities. Pros Sem Nas Masy Biodiv Indon 1: 1416-1419. Land utilization by developing various forestry commodities (minor forest product/MFP) is pro-poor, pro-jobs, pro-growth and pro-environment forest management model that accommodates ecological interests on the one hand with socio-economic considerations on the other. MFP commodity development goal is to optimize growing space by improving forest structure and its composition without changing forest conditions radically. Selected MFP commodities are non-timber forest products having comparative and competitive advantages and intercropped through various planting patterns such as agroforestry, a combination of medicinal and forest plant (wanafarma), food reserves and cultivation of fruit, resin and essential oil producing forest trees. This study aimed to obtain a description of land use models with MFP commodity cultivation inserted between forest tree stands that already exist. The research method was a literature study of some previous study results on MFP commodity development opportunities conducted at several study sites. The results showed that the development of MFP commodity provides an opportunity for local people to gain access to the forest, increase incomes significantly and simultaneously rehabilitate existing degraded lands. MFP commodity development had the potential to be developed in the area where the majority of surrounding community strongly depend on the forest, and also on private owned forest areas that had not been used optimally. MFP commodity development should be directed to local mainstay commodities which were suitable for its biophysical conditions, technology proficiency, and local community culture.