Question

Why do people we a lot of word
in ferested areas?​

Answer 1

Answer:

The concept of 'forest dependency' is highly problematic. Although it is possible to refer loosely to any people who rely on forest products for their livelihood as being to some extent 'forest dependent', this loose usage obscures fundamental distinctions between different types of relationships. Byron and Arnold (1997) have presented a fundamental critique of the use of the term 'forest dependency', arguing that it is more useful to present a typology of different types of users. They make a crucial distinction between people who rely on forest use and have no alternative, and those who use forest products or engage in economic activities involving forests, but do so as a matter of choice.

In this paper we concentrate on people who are more or less directly reliant on forests for livelihood purposes. It is useful to identify three broad types of people-forest relationships:

· People who live inside forests, often living as hunter-gatherers or shifting cultivators, and who are heavily dependent on forests for their livelihood primarily on a subsistence basis. People in this category are often indigenous peoples or people from minority ethnic groups. They are, thus, usually outside both the political and economic mainstream.

· People who live near forests, usually involved in agriculture outside the forest, who regularly use forest products (timber, fuelwood, bush foods, medicinal plants etc) partly for their own subsistence purposes and partly for income generation. For those involved in agriculture, nutrient supplements from forests are often of critical importance to productivity. Such supplements can be in the form of mulch from leaves gathered in the forest. Another source of nutrient supplement is forest grazing by livestock which converts nutrients from forest biomass into manure.

· People engaged in such commercial activities as trapping, collecting minerals or forest industries such as logging. Such people may be part of a mixed subsistence and cash economy. Where these people differ from the first two categories is in the fact that they depend on income from forest-dependent labour rather than from direct subsistence use of forest products. It is important to note, however, that this type of people-forest interaction can exist even in a highly monetized context: for example, small rural communities in highly industrialised countries like Australia can be almost totally dependent on wages from commercial logging. (Peace 1996, describes such a community in south eastern Australia.)