Modeling socio-economic characteristics and involvement in non wood forest products exploitation in AJK,Pakistan’s

In pakistan,the diversity of different non wood forest products (nwfps) and their role to cater for different health and income advantages as well as supporting livelihoods of the poor,it's important to explore factors affecting successful exploitation of nwfps. present research was carried out to understand the role of socio-economic characteristics of the inhabitants towards involvement in nwfp enterprise in azad state of jammu and kashmir (ajk),pakistan. a survey was administered on 200 respondents of the two largest and important districts i.e.,muzzafarabad and bagh. logistic regression approach was employed to find out the involvement of local community in nwfps collection,extraction and marketing and it was econometrically modelled as a function of socio-economic characteristics of the respondents. the results revealed the community involvement in nwfp venture being a family enterprise while age,education and income of the respondents were important socio-economic factors influencing nwfps involvement. the study concluded that nwfps have great potential to improve socio-economic conditions of devastated areas and there is need to disseminate strategies for judicious exploitation of nwfps by targeting family unit and socio-economic fabric of the areas. © 2015 university of agriculture. all rights reserved.