Effects of Roads on Nontimber Forest Products

Consumer forces, changing social climate, and expanding global markets are contributing to the increasing development of nontimber forest products such as medicinals, botanicals, decoratives, and natural foods. These products are becoming viable economic options for sustaining rural communities. Ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis), coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia), and St. Johns wort (Hypericum perforatum)-- all plants found on National Forests-- are major contributors to a multibillion-dollar herbal and botanical industry. How roads will affect the survival and sustainability of nontimber forest products and how access to nontimber forest products will be influenced are important issues.

Plants are harvested from the wild by local residents or contract crews brought in from elsewhere. Particularly for the local harvesters, who operate under permit systems, access by road to the resource is a critical cost factor. Market value of nontimber forest products is related to cost; increasingly difficult access as plants become scarce may be factored into market value.

Maps indicating roads that offer access to nontimber forest products often act as a means of pinpointing the desirable harvesting areas. For example, in the special forest products inventory (Karen Theiss and Associates 1996) created for Trinity County, California, roads were used extensively to describe how to find areas where wildcrafters could harvest a particular species.

Habitats and plant community structure of some commercially harvested species are linked to roads. Roads create openings important to maintaining diverse species in abundance. From an assessment of 45 commercial species in Oregon, 30 percent can be found in openings and along roadsides. It also is well known that certain species require undisturbed mature forest and would not benefit from the gaps and disturbance caused by roads. Because of the specific habitat requirements of, for example, wild ginger, pitcher plants, and shade-loving mosses, roads would not directly benefit these plants. Some of these species are listed as sensitive, and ready access threatens their survival.

Illegal collection of nontimber forest products is considered a problem in many areas. Roads play a role in illegal taking, as well as in monitoring harvest activities.

A special forest products inventory created for Trinity County, California, suggests that harvesters stay away from roadsides because some Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service districts routinely spray herbicides and pesticides.

Generalizing the need for roads or road decommissions for nontimber forest products is impossible. Some populations of harvestable species benefit from the disturbance caused by building and maintaining roads, and other populations are harmed. Although enforcement of illegal harvest might be hampered, so would legal harvest. But market adjustments for reduced harvest (product scarcity) are unpredictable, and whether any increased value would be transferred to the harvester is not known.

Management of most nontimber forest product species would benefit from information and models that predict regional and general effects from building or closing roads. Information is needed on the economic effects of roads on various components of the industry from harvesters overhead to product price. These questions must be answered to determine how building or decommissioning roads affects the sustainability of individual commercial species and hence the sustainability of the economies reliant on them.