SNR 533: Alternative Forest Products (1 credit)
Instructors: Leon Liegel, Dave Pilz, Randy Molina
Timeframe: 10 one-hour sessions over 2 weeks

Course Description

Use readings, personal experiences, and class discussion to explore the three major components of understanding and managing alternative forest products, also known as Nontimber Forest Products (NTFPs):

• Biological growth, extent, and productivity
• Socio-cultural implications for personal, commercial, and recreational harvest and use
• Managerial and political realities governing use and harvest at local, regional, national, and global scales

The assignments are designed to help you integrate alternative forest products into your individual case study and to supplement readings, lectures, and field trips. Class sessions will consist of lectures from the instructor or guest speakers, discussions about alternative forest products issues, and presentations on specific topics. At the end of the course, you will present your own strategy for integrating sustainable alternative forest product considerations to your individual case study. Chosen strategies or protocols will be used for the remainder of the session as you continue to collect data and answer questions that you have about any NTFPs in your project study area.

Desired Learning Outcomes

• Identify and characterize important and sometimes unique biological traits of NTFPs that occur in forest, rangeland, and urban ecosystems, in temperate or tropical environments
• Recognize, understand, and validate particular socio-cultural considerations of NTFP harvesting, for personal, commercial, or recreational use
• Recognize, understand, and develop complex strategies that can be used to harvest, conserve, or increase NTFPs in particular situations that reflect existing biological, socio-cultural, and managerial realities for a given landscape scale
• Learn to integrate the biological, socio-cultural, and managerial aspects of NTFPs in your project study area with appropriate strategies learned in other Certificate Program course.

Assignments

Biological Issues

1. Identify shrub, tree, plant, mushroom, lichen, or other NTFP species for your project area
    
2. Identify any unique biological or other traits of project area NTFP species that limit their growth, reproduction, and use
    
3. Identify plant, shrub, tree, lichen, and fungi species in your study area that have existing or potential commercial value and become familiar with existing literature summarizing these values
    
4. Identify and become familiar with inventory and monitoring data for those NTFP species identified in your project area.
    
 
Socio-cultural Issues
5. Identify and summarize past, present, or projected use of NTFPs in the study area and all informant groups or individuals interested in using, managing, or conserving these species
    
6. Characterize the socio-cultural values and opinions of NTFP harvesters and/or those favoring preservation rather than harvesting
    
 
Managerial Issues
7. Management plans to socio-cultural values and traditions of local and external resource users; and identify existing or potential NTFP resource conflicts
    
 
Synthesis and Integration
8. Prepare a plan to manage the NTFP resources in your study area by analyzing the biological, socio-cultural, and management realities as well as subject integration information from other Certificate Program courses
    
9. Present your plan for collecting information about and future management of NTFPs in your project area and answer the question: What are the major constraints in managing NTFPs in the study area (e.g., economics, ecological principles, socio-cultural realities, ethics, and beliefs,)? Are these constraints internal, external, or multi-dimensional to the study area.