A comparative assessment of national policies for valuing Non-wood Forest Products in Latin America

Latin America has a great potential for developing its bioeconomy focused on the sustainable use of non-wood forest products. The growing demand for these products from food, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries, places tropical countries in a potentially advantageous position. Consequently, it can represent a strong incentive for national and local governments to take action against deforestation and forest degradation. However, there is an information gap on the economic importance those products have in national economies (Muir et al, 2020; Sorrenti, 2017), which makes them severely under-valued and, consequently, leaves the sector in marginal positions for decision makers (Amici et al., 2020), and hinders the prioritization of NWFPs in national policies, development plans and forest strategies (Wahlén, 2017). In the last decades, several countries in Latin America have developed public policies related to the management of such resources, promotion of their sustainable extractivism and commercialization, along with the conservation of associated traditional knowledge. This study aims to draw an overview of the situation of Non-wood Forest Products (NWFP) in Latin America, regarding their policy framework and market context, and to identify gaps, challenges and opportunities for the further development of their value chains, with the following specific objectives: (1) To quantitatively describe the economic contribution, expressed by trading values, of some of the most important NWFPs in five selected Latin American countries; (2) To assess the general effectiveness of national policies and programs directly related to NWFP in supporting value chains, and identify their main opportunities and constraints; (3) To point out opportunities for development, through ongoing projects, potential partnerships (with second and third sectors), donors and communities involved.