Rainforest children surprise scientists

A new study by the International Centre for Forest Research(CIFOR) has discovered that many children in Burkina Faso's tropical forest communities are augmenting family incomes by harvesting and selling non timber forest products (NTFPs) without adult involvement or intervention.

 "This is a new dimension in the debate about NTFPs in West Africa ..... it could signify better recognition of the part played by children in maintaining their homes through the use or management of the forest and potentially different statistics relating to household income, extraction of forest resources or estimates about food security," said Michael Balinga, a CIFOR researcher and member of the study team.

Without any specific training or start-up capital, the children have demonstrated that it is not that difficult to commercialise NTFPs. This could help provide an important alternative to combat rural poverty in rainforest regions. The children - all between 5 and 18 years old - apparently harvest fruits, nuts and useful wild tree seeds on route to and from school from resources close to the forest path. Some of these NTFPs are sold and the money is frequently used to buy clothes, shoes, lunch, text books and to pay for matriculation. Without this additional income, these costs would have to be found by their parents from more conventional and possibly less sustainable sources.

Balinga points out that these children represent the future adults and leaders of the forest communities and that this kind of productive yet sustainable activity may well be possible in other biodiverse tropical forest regions of the world, like the Amazon and Indonesia.

Source: www.blog.cifor.org  (by Maya Thatcher)

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