Abstract

Nkwatoh Athanasius Fuashi, Labode Popoola, Iyassa Sabastine Mosua, Nkwatoh Ferdinand Wehmbazeyi, Ndumbe Njie Louis and Ewane Marcus Elah

The harvesting and marketing of Gnetum africanum and Gnetum bucholzianum (Engl), a major NonTimber Forest Product (NTFP) in West and Central Africa, was carried out between 2002 - 2008, with the objective of examining the production and marketing of Gnetum species and their economic contributions to the economies of Cameroon and Nigeria and that of West and Central Africa at large. Besides timber, the forest contains many useful goods and services of subsistence and commercial value called NTFPs that sustain rural people and rural economies. Falconer (1990, 1992) defines NTFPs as all forest goods and services, excluding commercial timber. In this context, Gnetum as an NTFP consists of the leaves of an ever green vine from the family Gnetaceae that are harvested from the forest ecosystem, processed, and marketed, as well as eaten as a vegetable in Central and West Africa, Europe and the U.S.A. as a traditional African dish. The line transects questionnaires and a selection of some participatory rural appraisal (PRA) tools were used to source information from harvesters and traders on the occurrence, marketing and market channels for Gnetum species in the study area.