Abstract            Volume:7  Issue-6  Year-2019         Original Research Articles

Online ISSN : 2347 - 3215 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcret@gmail.com

In forest resource abundant areas, NTFPs play an important role to the rural household economy. The traditional use of these forest products in the area of study have not been thoroughly studied and documented. Therefore, this study was conducted in Southwestern Ethiopia, Gore district with the main objective of investigating and analysing the extent to which the NTFP utilization contribute to the local household economy. Purposive sampling was employed to select the villages. Seventy-five households were sampled using stratified random sampling. Questionnaire and PRA tools were used for data collection. The result indicated that about 87 % of the local communities generate 23 % of their total income from NTFPs. NTFPs are widely utilized in the study area and provide seasonal job opportunity. The input of NTFP to household income of the poor (28 %) is more than medium (23 %) and rich (15 %). This shows that variation in the extent of dependency on NTFP income. But considering the absolute values the rich get more than the medium and poor. However, statistically there is no significant difference between the three-wealth status and NTFP income. Households lacking land and/or livestock depend on NTFP income for about 35 % of their total income. The level of dependency of the poor category is more than that of the other. Therefore, any negative change of the availability of NTFPs directly affects the poor.

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