Forest Products

Let’s begin with a simple question—What does a forest give us?

You might say: wood, fruits, maybe shade. True. But in geography, we classify these systematically.  So, let’s explore:

There are two broad categories of forest products:

1. Major Forest Products
2. Minor Forest Produce

Let’s understand them one by one.

🔨 Major Forest Products

These are the primary commercial products we get from forests—especially wood in its various forms. Think of them as the “big-ticket” items.

🪵 Timber, Smallwood, Fuelwood (and Charcoal)

Let’s differentiate:

• Timber: Large, strong wood used for construction—like beams, furniture.
• Smallwood: Thinner branches and logs, useful in fencing, scaffolding, etc.
• Fuelwood: Used for burning, whether for cooking or heating. This includes charcoal, which is burnt wood used as a cleaner fuel.

Now here’s a technical yet important classification:

🌲 Hardwood vs Softwood

• Hardwood:
  • Comes from deciduous trees (broad-leaved).
  • Denser, heavier, and generally more durable.
  • Examples: Teak, Mahogany, Logwood, Ironwood.
  • Used in furniture, flooring, construction.
• Softwood:
  • From coniferous trees (needle-leaved).
  • Lighter, easier to cut, often used where flexibility matters.
  • Examples: Deodar, Spruce, Cedar, Fir.
  • Excellent for paper pulp, packaging, and carpentry.

📊 Some Stats Worth Noting:

• Forests meet around 40% of India’s total energy requirement, mostly through fuelwood.
• Jammu & Kashmir is the largest timber-producing state, followed by Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, etc.

🍀 Minor Forest Produce

Now this is where it gets more diverse—and fascinating.

MFP includes everything obtained from forests other than timber. This means plants, shrubs, herbs, animal-derived products, oils, dyes, and more.

Let’s classify and understand them:

a. Grasses, Bamboos, and Canes

These are nature’s version of multipurpose tools.

• Grasses:
  • Used for fodder, thatching, cordage, and paper.
  • Sabai grass grows on bare sub-Himalayan slopes—used in paper.
  • Khus roots are woven into cooling screens (like eco-friendly ACs!).
  • Munj grass becomes chicks, stools, etc.
• Bamboo:
  • Called the “poor man’s timber“.
  • Used for flooring, roofing, fencing, matting, basketry.
  • Young bamboo shoots are edible, seeds are eaten as grains.
  • Most critical: It’s a key raw material for the paper industry.
• Cane (like rattan):
  • Grows in A&N Islands, Maharashtra, Karnataka, MP, Kerala, and Northeast.
  • Used to make ropes, bags, mats, baskets—flexible, durable, and eco-friendly.

b. Tans and Dyes

• Tannins: Plant secretions used in leather tanning.
  • Sources: Mangrove, Amla, Oak, etc.
• These are chemical compounds that make animal hide into durable leather.

c. Oils

Many Indian Forest plants yield essential and commercial oils.

Used in soaps, perfumes, cosmetics, confectionery, medicine.

Key oils:

• Sandalwood
• Lemon grass
• Khus
• Eucalyptus globulus

Each has industrial and aromatherapy applications.

d. Gums and Resins

• Gums:
  • Naturally or injury-exuded from trees.
  • Ex: Karaya gum—used in textiles and cosmetics.
• Resins:
  • From Chir Pine in Western Himalayas.
  • Processed into turpentine, used as paint solvent.

e. Fibres and Flosses

• Fibres: From tree tissues, used in rope making.
• Flosses: Soft plant substances used to fill pillows and cushions.

f. Tendu Leaves

• Widely used in Beedi industry.
• A major MFP in terms of employment and value in tribal areas.

g. Drugs, Spices, and Poisons

• Drugs:
  • Quinine (from Cinchona) – a life-saving anti-malarial.
• Poisonous plants:
  • Dhatura, Ganja – used with extreme caution in medicine.
• Spices:
  • Cardamom, Cinnamon – essential in both culinary and medicinal fields.

h. Edible Forest Products

• Includes fruits, leaves, roots, and flowers.
• Examples: Jamun, Mango, Beet, etc.
• For tribal communities, forests are not just a resource, but a kitchen and pharmacy combined.

i. Animal Products

• Lac:
  • Derived from the insect Laccifer lacca.
  • Used in varnish, medicine, plastics, insulation, etc.

Let’s discuss about Bamboo, a very important forest produce:

Bamboo

🧩 Structure and Growth of Bamboo

See guys, bamboo doesn’t grow like an ordinary tree. It grows from rhizomes, which are underground stems — you can imagine them like hidden pipelines that spread horizontally below the soil.

1. Monopodial Rhizome (Running Type)
   • This type spreads horizontally for long distances.
   • Buds on these rhizomes either go upward (forming bamboo shoots or culms) or sideways (forming new rhizome branches).
   • Such bamboo is non-clump forming — it spreads fast and can become invasive, meaning it takes over surrounding areas.
   • Found mostly in temperate regions (like in East Asia or colder areas).
2. Sympodial Rhizome (Clumping Type)
   • These are short, thick rhizomes, and the bamboo shoots grow close together — forming a dense clump.
   • Such species expand slowly and uniformly in a circular fashion.
   • These are non-invasive, mostly found in tropical regions (like India’s Northeast, Central, and Southern forests).

So, if you see a big bushy cluster of bamboo — that’s sympodial. If it spreads across fields like grass — that’s monopodial. 🌱

🗺️ Distribution of Bamboo

Bamboo’s distribution depends upon climate, altitude, and soil.
It is not evenly spread everywhere — it’s a very climate-sensitive plant.

Globally:

• Naturally abundant in East and Southeast Asia.
• Found across the Islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, especially between 15° and 25° North latitudes.

In India:

• Bamboo grows almost everywhere except Kashmir (because of cold climatic conditions).
• Major concentration:
  • Northeastern states and West Bengal → together hold over 50% of India’s bamboo.
  • Other bamboo-rich regions: Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Western Ghats, and the Andaman–Nicobar Islands.
• It thrives in deciduous and semi-evergreen forests — like in moist and warm areas of northern and southern India.

So, when you think of bamboo in India — think “Northeast = Bamboo heartland.”

💰 Importance of Bamboo

Bamboo isn’t just a plant — it’s a livelihood, a culture, and an ecosystem stabilizer.
That’s why it’s called:

“Green Gold,” “Poor Man’s Timber,” or even “Cradle-to-Coffin Timber.”

Let’s understand why 👇

1. Economic Importance:
   • Provides income and employment to tribal and rural communities.
   • Used for furniture, handicrafts, flooring, paper, and fishing poles.
   • Even used as scaffolding in construction (those bamboo structures you see around buildings under construction).
2. Household Uses:
   • Young shoots eaten as vegetables in many Asian cuisines.
   • Stems used for pipes, house planks, rafts.
   • Leaves are used as fodder for cattle.
3. Environmental Benefits:
   • Excellent in carbon sequestration (absorbing CO₂).
   • Helps in soil moisture conservation and reducing erosion.

So, bamboo is not just wood — it’s a solution to livelihood, environment, and industry.

🏡 Forest Fringe Villages

Let’s now connect people with forests — because bamboo matters most to those living closest to forests.

• India has about 6.5 lakh villages, and out of these, around 1.7 lakh villages are near forests.
  These are called Forest Fringe Villages.

People in these villages depend on forests for:

• Fuelwood
• Fodder
• Small timber
• Bamboo
• Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs)

And interestingly, each state’s dependency pattern varies:

Resource	States with highest dependence
Fuelwood	Maharashtra > Odisha > Rajasthan > MP
Fodder	MP > Maharashtra > Gujarat > Rajasthan
Bamboo	MP > Chhattisgarh > Gujarat > Maharashtra
Small Timber	MP > Gujarat > Maharashtra

So, bamboo is an inseparable part of rural forest-based economies.

🇮🇳 Initiatives to Promote Bamboo in India

Now comes the policy part — what is the government doing to promote bamboo cultivation and trade?

National Bamboo Mission (NBM)

• Restructured in 2018, the mission aims for holistic growth of the bamboo sector.
• Focus: from cultivation to marketing — a complete value chain.
• Read here for more detail.

Amendment to the Indian Forest Act (1927)

Earlier, bamboo was legally considered a tree. That meant:

• You needed felling and transit permissions to cut or transport it.

But in 2017, the Act was amended, and bamboo was removed from the “tree” category.
➡️ This means bamboo grown outside forests can now be freely cultivated, harvested, and sold.
This gave a massive boost to farmers and entrepreneurs in the bamboo sector.

Project BOLD (Bamboo Oasis on Lands in Drought)

• Launched by Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC).
• Purpose: To create bamboo-based green patches in arid and semi-arid regions.

🌎 India’s Global Position in Bamboo

• India has the largest area under bamboo (15 million hectares).
• It is the second richest in bamboo diversity (136 species), after China.
• But here’s the catch — despite our abundance, China dominates exports (around 68% of global bamboo and rattan products).
  So, India’s focus is now shifting from raw material to value addition — making bamboo-based industries globally competitive.