Provisioning food and medicine from public forests in the United States

Authors: CHAMBERLAIN, JAMES - Us Forest Service (FS); HONOR, RICHARD - Conservation Visions Inc; MALCOLM, KARL - Us Forest Service (FS); MAHONY, SHANE - Conservation Visions Inc; BELLMORE, RYAN - Us Forest Service (FS); REEVES, MATTHEW - Us Forest Service (FS); Wilmer, Hailey; GUTGESELL, MARIE - Us Forest Service (FS); SILL, LAUREN - Alaska Department Of Fish And Game

Submitted to: Forests, Trees and People
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/18/2024
Publication Date: 11/29/2024
Citation: Chamberlain, J., Honor, R.D., Malcolm, K., Mahony, S.P., Bellmore, R.J., Reeves, M.C., Wilmer, H.N., Gutgesell, M.K., Sill, L.A. 2024. Provisioning food and medicine from public forests in the United States. Forests, Trees and People. 19. Article 100738. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tfp.2024.100738.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tfp.2024.100738

Interpretive Summary: Forests contribute to the nutritional and medicinal needs of billions of people worldwide. In the United States, the extent and impacts of provisioning forest foods are not fittingly understood. This study seeks to elucidate the scope and scale of forest food harvest and production and their value to the health and well-being of society. Using publicly available data, recreational hunting surveys and proprietary data from the Wild Harvest Initiative, we provide estimates of the volumes of foods and medicines from flora and fauna harvested from public forest lands for subsistence, recreation and commercial consumption. The evidence strongly supports the assertion that large volumes of forest-dependent fauna and flora contribute to the health and well-being of a significant portion of the country’s population. We postulate that the estimates reported, however, are low and biased to the western portion of the country. Our findings are relevant to the global challenge of providing more nutritional food to a growing population through ecologically sustainable sources, and they provide more clarity to the importance of wild flora and fauna harvesting in the United States. The case of the State of Alaska, which codifies subsistence harvesting in its constitution, exemplifies the potential benefits of recognizing the importance of natural resources to its residents. Concerted institutional efforts that reflect changes in priorities recognizing the importance of forest food and medicines to people and communities would shed more light on these important natural resources and could lead to improved management and food security.

Technical Abstract: Forests contribute to the nutritional and medicinal needs of billions of people worldwide. This study seeks to elucidate the scope and scale of forest food harvest and production in the US and their value to the health and well-being of society. Using publicly available data, recreational hunting surveys and proprietary data from the Wild Harvest Initiative, we provide estimates of the volumes of foods and medicines from flora and fauna harvested from public forest lands for subsistence, recreation and commercial consumption. Our findings suggest that forests and rangelands contribute greatly to food produced and consumed in the United States. Forest food and medicine systems are reliant on public and private managers and merit additional attention and research in the future.