Special forest products: Experiences in the inland northwest

Our special forest products efforts in Idaho have focused primarily on rural people looking to diversify their income, rather than forest owners. Programs have sought to acquaint participants with: the range of locally harvestable special forest products and their market value; methods to explore special forest product markets; harvest sustainability; harvest feasibility analysis; and methods to increase total returns from the harvest, including: market niches, harvester marketing cooperatives, dry materials, export markets, value-added processing, and special forest products tourism. Many people who have wanted to harvest special forest products were not particularly interested in turning it into a full-blown business enterprise. Options include 1) focusing on rural people who have entrepreneurial interests and skills and pairing them with harvesters, and 2) trying to recruit firms that process special forest products to set up facilities in rural communities.