These are yet early days in the search for mechanisms that reflect concerns over both poverty alleviation and appropriate natural resource management in tropical environments. The search grows out of a rising awareness that answering the needs of these areas' human inhabitants may well be a sine qua non for environmental success, and vice versa. Frequently found on the "short lists" of planners, policy makers, aid donors, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and farmers themselves for such mechanisms have been non-timber forest products (NTFPs)-- items such as medicinal plants, tropical fruits, and building poles, extractable from forest environments and inherently suited to tropical ecosystems (more so than annual cropping systems, especially in areas with poor soils). Indigenous products already in use have come under closer study, while speculation continues regarding potential uses for a raft of other products. Although NTFPs play an important role in the subsistence of inhabitants in some areas, those interested in them usually pin their hopes on the promise of markets, of graduation from subsistence, for realizing potential gains from NTFPs for economic growth, for poverty alleviation (through employment generation, for instance), and for more widespread conservation of the natural resource base. If such markets thrive, one argument goes, tropical forests will be more highly valued, creating a greater incentive for their conservation; what's more, farmers will also have additional incentive to re-forest--plant and cultivate trees on farms.

Yet a central policy question persists: how much potential do these products' markets, in the short- and long-term future, for alleviating poverty and preserving the environment? On the answer to this will hinge (in part) the allocation of resources for research in this area. And, many practical questions arise surrounding the market scenario described above--for example: how much demand (and where) exists for these products? Who (individuals, cooperatives, or other groups of institutions) has the skills/capital needed to market (in an advertising as well as distribution sense) them? Who will produce/process the products (and will it be more profitable than alternative resource uses)? Are the poor likely to benefit? Will products be harvested/extracted from privately owned property, common property, or open access areas, and with what consequences for the environment under each regime? Under what circumstances might production shift from forest to farm, and with what consequences for poverty and the environment? What production processes, at what levels of production, can preserve the habitat? And, finally, which products are most likely to meet with success, how quickly, and for how long? This workshop brought together economists, environmentalists, policy analysts, anthropologists, and market specialists to discuss how answers may be found to such practical questions surrounding demand, supply, distribution, and marketing of one subcategory of NTFPs of particular interest to policy makers--non-timber tree products (NTTPs).

By focusing on the tree rather than the forest, workshop discussions embraced products able to make the cross-over from natural forest to agroforest or farm cultivation, thereby including products feasible, for example, in the drylands of Africa in addition to those workable in the humid tropical forest margins. By concentrating on markets rather than on NTTP activities per se, workshop organizers prompted explicit consideration of an entrepreneurial perspective, with its issues of finding and/or creating demand, of covering costs in processing and distribution, and of marketing itself--complete with implications of incorporating environmental concerns within such a perspective. By emphasizing research methods, workshop sessions began to pinpoint ways in which the study of NTTP markets parallels as well as diverges from that of other, more familiar agricultural product markets (with research methods often available in the former instance, but lacking in the latter). Indeed, NTTP market studies probably must ultimately be linked to study of other product markets, or market performance more generally, for the sites in question. Perhaps most fundamentally, by keeping in mind ultimate policy objectives for paying attention to NTTP markets (poverty alleviation and environmental preservation), workshop participants tried to trace how scenarios could develop under which NTTP markets might work against, rather than for, desired objectives (e.g., successful marketing could lead to overharvesting of a product, or to a change in production process that might damage the surrounding habitat).

Indeed, in these "early days" for NTTP market research, the group lamented, little is known regarding how or why scenarios unfold as they do, in other words, about the dynamics of NTTP market development, and, consequently, what policy makers or others might do to promote these processes. Not surprising, then, was the widespread frustration felt over the difficulty of "picking a winner" among the myriad NTTPs (a product that can, once on the market, raise incomes while preserving the natural resource base). As a way of approaching this unknown within what may seem like an elusive subject for study--with NTTP markets emerging suddenly or gradually, some to thrive, and others to disappear--the group concentrated on identifying conceptual and methodological "stumbling blocks" impeding systematic examination of NTTP markets, plus possible ways to ease or remove them. Keeping in mind implications of scenarios discussed for the twin goals of economic growth to alleviate poverty and improved environmental management, and the potential role for policy, workshop sessions were devoted to the following topics:

• General conceptual issues--a) examining the role of NTTP market activities (for example, their scope, importance to the poor as subsistence product or income source, their impact on the environment), b) as part of economic activities more broadly within NTTP areas, which are often characterized by imperfectly functioning markets, c) paying special attention to the interaction among various actors such as the public sector, the private sector--including traders and entrepreneurs, firms and small producers, NGOs, with varying objectives, skills, and resources at their disposal, d) within or across various geographic and/or administrative boundaries delineated as village, region, state, nation, or international;

• Priority research issues--identifying topics that set the study of NTTP markets apart from those of other agricultural product markets, and require further investigation, such as political economy, property rights, environmental externalities, and multiple sourcing of supply; and

• Research methods--exploring how best to apply existing methods, for instance via combinations or sequencing of methods, as well as outlining critical gaps in methods and how to start to fill these gaps.

To order a workshop summary paper, please fill out an online order form, email ifpri-ept@cgiar.org or send requests to Environment and Production Technology Division, IFPRI, 2033 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006, U.S.A.