Forest Products, Livelihoods and Conservation

Kathrin Schreckenberg 109

Whether local women would benefit if the international cosmetics sector

demand for artisan produced butter increased is debatable. It is more likely

that such demand would be met by producers in countries with a high prior

investment (by government, projects and private sector) in the technology

and organisation of butter making, such as Burkina Faso (Diallo n.d.), Mali

(Hyman 1991) and Ghana (Pugansoa and Amuah 1991; Wallace-Bruce 1995).

CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT LESSONS OF CASE

Conservation lessons

There tend to be two areas of concern linking conservation and NTFPs, neither

of which is especially relevant to the shea case. The first derives from the

early hope, particularly in Latin America, that incomes from NTFPs would

provide sufficient incentive to local people to ensure the conservation of

rainforest resources. This case study, however, joins a growing body of literature

from Africa (Lindström and Kingamkono 1991; Falconer 1992; Scoones et al.

1992) indicating the importance of fields and fallows for NTFP collection.

Shea will therefore never contribute to the conservation of rainforests, nor

even to the conservation of its natural savanna vegetation, as it thrives

particularly well in a cultivated parkland environment. The second area of

concern relates to the future of the NTFP itself and the fear that successful

commercialisation may lead to overexploitation of the resource. In the case

of shea the high level of potential supply (in terms of the existing resource

base) relative to demand, combined with a nondestructive method of

harvesting, means that there is no danger of overexploitation.

Development lessons

The interest in shea is related almost exclusively to its potential to contribute

to livelihoods, which it does both as a staple ingredient in the local diet and as

an important source of income for women. De Jong et al. (2000) argue that

the literature rarely deals with the extent to which NTFPs can drive socio-

economic development on a sustainable basis. They identify five threats to

sustained income from NTFPs:

1. destruction of resource base through overharvesting;


2. appropriation of benefits by more powerful stakeholders as
   commercialisation becomes successful;


3. domestication and production in intensive plantations far away from
   original collectors;


4. reduced demand because of products going out of fashion; and


5. substitution of product by manufactured goods.

None of these threats applies to the shea case. The first and third are only

relevant if demand outstrips supply, and the reverse is true for shea (Fintrac

1999). The second does not appear to be a problem, perhaps because profits

have always been modest and have therefore not attracted the attention of

the powerful. The fourth threat (reduced demand) could have been a longer-

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