Why Is Non-Timber Forest Product Harvesting an “Issue”?

Summary Despite an encouraging trend in North America of growing interest across a range of disciplines in non-timber forest products (e.g., this volume), NTFP harvesters' knowledge and practices continue to be poorly understood and undervalued, if not ignored, both by research scientists and forestland policy-makers and managers. This article explores why NTFP harvesting suddenly emerged in North America as an “issue” in the early 1990s. Drawing from a three-year study of chanterelle mushroom harvesters on the Olympic Peninsula Biosphere Reserve (Washington, USA), we discuss a variety of forces which intersected in this period to bring NTFP harvesting to wider attention. Unfortunately, harvesters continue to be excluded as knowledgeable actors in, if not legitimate co-managers of, temperate forest ecosystems, resulting in both passive and active harvester resistance to research and management, a devaluing of local harvesting traditions, and missed opportunities for collaboration. We reluctantly conclude that despite “New Forestry” co-management rhetoric, given existing institutional barriers and positivist scientific categories, NTFP workers will likely remain excluded from active roles in temperate forest research and management-contributing in turn to the ongoing legitimacy crisis of public and private forest management entities.