Abstract

Communities living in and around forests continue to rely directly upon a wide variety of forest products and services for their daily subsistence needs as well as for economic and cultural sustenance. Processing adds considerable value to the raw Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs). Therefore, it is imperative to understand the marketing pattern of NTFPs prevailing in the tribal economy and to suggest the policy interventions for improving marketability of NTFPs by adding values through micro-enterprise development. Ethnicity has a significant influence on total collection and marketable surplus quantities and value received in market. However, it had a very little, less than significant influence on nationalised NTFPs. Study suggests that in formulating strategies and identifying areas for development on NTFPs based enterprises, ethnicity of tribal community may be taken as important decision variable.

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