Conservation vs. livelihoods: spatial management of non-timber forest product harvests in a two-dimensional model

Areas of high biodiversity often coincide with communities living in extreme poverty. As a livelihood support, these communities often harvest wild products from the environment. But harvest activities can have negative impacts on fragile and globally important ecosystems. This paper examines trade-offs in ecological protection and community welfare from the harvest of wild products. With a novel model and empirical evidence, I show that management of harvest activity does not always resolve these trade-offs. In a model of continuous harvests in a two-dimensional landscape, managed harvest activity improves welfare, but is uniformly bad for other ecosystem services that are sensitive to the presence (as opposed to the intensity) of human activity. Empirical results from a unique dataset of mushroom harvesters in Yunnan, China suggest more experienced, poorer, and more vulnerable individuals tend to rely on more distant harvests. Thus, policies that limit the extent of forest travel, such as protected areas, may protect fragile ecosystems but can have a disproportionately negative effect on those most vulnerable.