Abstract
Adilabad in Andhra Pradesh is a backward district, with 37.72% of geographic area under forest cover and inhabited by 17.08% ethnic people who use the local tropical dry deciduous forests to extract Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) for self-consumption and economic subsistence. The analysis of NTFPs in six forest divisions of Adilabad district, viz. Adilabad, Bellampalli, Jannaram, Kagaznagar, Mancherial and Nirmal reveals the use of consumptive category of goods like wild food plants, honey, oils, fodder, etc. on one hand and the non-consumptive items like gums, resins, gum-resins, dyes, wax, lac, fibers, fuel wood, charcoal, fencing material, brooms, wildlife products, raw materials like bamboo and cane for handicrafts, etc. besides the medicinal plants. The NTFP diversity shows the cognitive ability of the people while the products extracted belong to 183 flowering plant species which represent 149 genera of 64 families (164 Magnoliopsida; 19 Liliopsida). The Legumes dominate the list with 31 taxa, followed by Rubiaceae (11) and Euphorbiaceae (7). Most of the NTFP species are phanerophytes (61% trees) and indigenous. The government of Andhra Pradesh has a procurement policy and price index for select NTFPs by which the stakeholders get reasonable seasonal income through the collection and sale of beedi leaf, gums (karaya, thiruman, konda gogu), stem bark (narra mamidi), fleshy corolla (ippa), fruits (karakkaya, kunkudu), seeds (chilla, mushti, morli), etc.
Highlights
Forest is a natural ecosystem constituting an important, non-renewable living resource
The present study aims at providing a glimpse of Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) diversity and how it is utilized in the forests of Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh, India
The diversity of available NTFP species and their products in the natural forests were studied in Adilabad district during the years 2008-2010
Summary
Forest is a natural ecosystem constituting an important, non-renewable living resource. Forest ecosystems of the world make up the Forest Biome, a vital terrestrial biomass producer and repository of biological diversity. Forests have the potential for improving human well-being through supplementing income while functioning as safety nets (Angelsen & Wunder, 2003). Since forests play an important role in the sustainability of life on land, humans rightly resorted to reserve one third of the natural terrestrial plant cover. In view of the global forest decline, the UN has named 2011 as the ‘International Year of Forests’ in the ‘Decade for Biodiversity’. There is a need to study the local forests from the standpoints of nature and extent of their resource utilization
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