Provisioning food and medicine from public forests in the United States

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Forests contribute to the nutritional and medicinal needs of billions of people worldwide. In the United States, the extent and impacts of provisioning forest foods are not fittingly understood. This study seeks to elucidate the scope and scale of forest food harvest. Using publicly available data, hunting surveys and proprietary data from the Wild Harvest Initiative®, we provide estimates of the amount of foods and medicines from wild-harvested flora and fauna, and meat produced from domesticated livestock grazed on public forest lands. The evidence strongly supports the assertion that large volumes of forest-dependent fauna and flora contribute to the health and well-being of a substantial portion of the country's population. Each year, >255 thousand metric tons of forest foods and medicines are harvested across public lands of the United States. Our findings are relevant to the global challenge of providing more nutritional food to a growing population through ecologically sustainable sources. The study provides more clarity to the importance of wild flora and fauna harvesting in the United States. The case of the State of Alaska, which codifies subsistence harvesting in its constitution, exemplifies the potential benefits of recognizing the importance of these natural resources to its residents. Concerted institutional efforts recognizing the importance of forest food and medicines to people and communities would shed more light on these natural resources and could lead to improved land management and food security.