National socioeconomic surveys in forestry: Guidance and survey modules for measuring the multiple roles of forests in household welfare and livelihoods

Forests play important provisioning and supporting roles in the livelihoods of rural households and many of those who live in extreme poverty are to some degree reliant on forests for their livelihood. Products from non-cultivated ecosystems such as natural forests, woodlands, wetlands, lakes, rivers and grasslands can be a significant income source for rural households, providing energy, food, construction materials and medicines both for subsistence and cash uses. Evidence from seminal studies on the use of these environmental resources, shows that the contribution of forest and other environmental resources to household income accounts is significant. Standard methodologies that could consistently measure the welfare contribution of forests and environment to household income and poverty alleviation could eventually ensure that the true value of forests and other environmental products is captured in a range of standard and important livelihood metrics, such as national poverty measurements and GDP.