Poverty, Vulnerability, Non-timber Forest Products and Rural Livelihood: An Indian Experience

Poverty, vulnerability as well as rural livelihoods are all complex and dynamic themes making it difficult to achieve. Households may respond differently to risk depending on factors such as the household’s socio-economic class, its lifecycle stage, its exposure to risk, its asset base and the coping strategies at their disposal. Rural households invest in a diversity of livelihood strategies and assets in order to spread potential risk and provide a buffer against vulnerability. Whilst some see this diversity as an inevitable poverty trap, households diversify as a means of coping as well as in response to changing opportunities and constraints. This paper argues that in India better management of forests and forest products like Non-Timber Forest Products can protect the rural poor - especially the forest dwellers, from the poverty trap, climatic vulnerability and insecure livelihood.