Recent research linking poverty alleviation and forest conservation has frequently
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of wild food plants in the livelihood of rural populations. Two methods of
evaluation are used to estimate the value of the wild food plants consumed by Pwo
Karen people living in the Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary in western
Thailand. The first calculates the time needed to gather the wild food plants (14.63
days/year per household), and the second uses the prices of commercial substitutes
in the market to estimate the number of days household members would have to engage
in paid work if they switched to commercial food crops (143 days/year). The paper
concludes that consuming wild food plants is an efficient method of subsistence that
should be encouraged. If it is not encouraged, economic growth could lead people to
squander additional cash incomes on higherstatus commercial food crops rather than
spend it on productive investment.
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