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Forests play important provisioning and supporting roles in the livelihoods of rural households (Byron and Arnold, 1999, Sunderlin et al., 2005) and the majority of those who live in extreme poverty are 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. Beginning with seminal studies on environmental resource use (e.g. Cavendish, 2000) the contribution of forest and other environmental resources to household income accounts were found to be significant, and recent comparative evidence suggests forest and environmental income contributes up to 28% of total income among in households living in or near forests (Angelsen et al., 2014). Furthermore, a vast majority - more than 750 million - live in areas of lower tree densities and rely on the surrounding forest and wild resources (Shephard, 2012). Forest products contribute to the shelter of at least 1.3 billion people, based on partial information available. Likewise, about 2.4 billion people cook with woodfuel. Little information exists on how many people benefit from forests. The data available is often weak. Data collection mostly focuses on forests and trees. This needs to be complemented by data collection on the benefits that people receive. Collaborating with public organizations undertaking such surveys is the way forward (FAO, 2014a). Given the likely importance of forests to the well-being of rural populations in many contexts around.

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