Non-wood forest products (NWFPs) have often-underestimated economic potential, particularly for family forest owners. Their role and value, however, is changing in the global West and so are the business opportunities and innovation needs associated with them. Focusing on industrialized countries, this chapter gives an overview of the broad range of goods and services connected with NWFPs, describing important innovation trends. In the core of the chapter, a number of case study analyses from Europe and North America illustrate the various ways NWFPs sourced through a wild collection or specialized management systems can be utilized by family forest owners. We analyze the actor networks, value creation processes, and role of services for supporting such systems. While recognizing the importance of non-market values from NWFPs, our primary emphases are on business and income potential for family forestry. We conclude that the application of a service-dominant logic is helpful for understanding how new goods and services are developed by forest owners in networks of various kinds of public and private actors and within specific institutional and cultural contexts. From the analysis, we also derive recommendations on how service providers and policy measures can purposefully support innovations in NWFPs in a family forestry context.
Weiss, G., Emery, M.R., Minna, J., Kurttila, M., Corradini, G., Huber, P., Vacik, H. (2019) Value Creation and Innovation with Non-wood Forest Products in a Family Forestry Context. In: Hujala, T., Toppinen, A., Butler, B.J. (Eds.) Services in Family Forestry. Springer International Publishing, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 185-224.
*Dr Gerhard Weiss from Forest Policy Research Network is the lead author of this publication.