Assessment of Contribution of Non -Wood Forest Products in Improving Livelihood of Local Communities-WadiSalehLocality, Central Darfur State,Sudan

Abstract

This study was conducted in wadi saleh locality in central Dar fur state. The objective of this study was to assessment the contribution of NWFPs in improving the livelihood of rural communities. Also the study aims to the attitudes and awareness of local people towards the importance of non-wood forest products in increase the income beside these to know the main constraints faced the local communities during the collection and production of non-wood forest products in the study area. Data collection depends mainly on the primary data which includes general survey and observations in order to study cocia-economic characteristic of local people also to assess the types of non-wood forest products which found in the study area. Five villages were selected randomly out of (20) villages to represent the target groups which include namely (fogo, amargadeed, mido, garsila and deleeg).Total of 90 household were selected randomly as sample size from these villages which constituted about 10%. Questionnaire was designed to collect to information from the household in the study area. Beside these, focus groups discussion was conducted with stakeholder and chick list with forest manager in the state level. Secondary data was obtained from different sources which include the scientific papers, reports, internet, researches and text book. Data was analyzed by using statistical package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The study found that the forest covered about 37% of the total land of central Dar fur state, and the most important of non-wood forest products in the study area include: Zizyphus spina-christi(Nabag), Balanities aegyptiaca (Hajleeg), Acacia nilotica (Garad), Tamarindus indica (Aradieb), and Grewia tanex (Gudiem,), Faidherbia albida (Haraz), Acacia Senegal (Hasab), Acacia seyal (Talih), Albiza amara (Arad). (97%) of households were dependents on collection of non-wood forest products for xii subsistence and income generation. And also indicated that collection of NWFPs is affected by the economic, social, cultural and geographical location of households, and it was performed by all household members, and that women have the highest share in collection process (59%). Then the study revealed that about 78% of the respondents were sold their products in the local markets to the village's traders. The study showed that there were main constraints facing the collectors and marketing of the NTFPs in the study area like low prices of the products, taxes and lack of the transportation means and absences of forest extension towards the protection the sources of non-wood forest products. The study recommended that the forest extension should be strengthened and participation of local leaders in raise awareness of local communities for protection trees through uses of gas cylinder and Improved Stoves besides increase the capacity building through workshops that focus in seedling production and seed broad casting in order to conservation and protection of vegetation cover in study area, also empowerment of women in study area about production and marketing of NWFPs through capacity building and training, finally the FNC should put great attention for strategic planning for production of non-wood forest products because were contributed in improvement of livelihoods, food security and income generation of local communities in the study area