Documentation and comparation methods to assess options for forest-based livelihoods and their outcomes. The contributions are based on the premise that livelihood and conservation goals can be best achieved by improving information flow about changes in the environment, and the impacts of forest use. The authors report on the strengths and weaknesses of methods that have been tried in the field.

Non-wood forest products comprise a wide range of forest goods, providing traditional sources of food, fodder, fertilizer, fibre, medicine, organic construction materials and cultural products, as well as raw industrial materials, making valuable socio-economic, cultural and ecological contributions. This booklet describes how such products are used to meet basic subsistence needs, and the role they can play in income generation through local, regional and international trade. [The main target audience for the FAO Diversification booklets are people and organizations that provide advisory, business and technical support to small-scale farmers and local communities in low and middle-income countries, as well as policy makers and programme managers. They are not intended to be technical "how to do it "guidelines; however each booklet identifies additional sources of information, technical support and websites.]

This proceedings volume has been edited from sixty-nine full text papers of the 132 papers presented to the IUFRO (International Union of Forestry Research Organizations) Conference on Environmental Forest Science, which was jointly organized by IUFRO Division 8, "Forest Environment", and Kyoto University in Kyoto, Japan, on 19-23 October 1998. The International Union of Forestry Research Organizations (IUFRO) is one of the oldest scientific societies. It was founded in 1892 to foster cooperation of research units on forestry. IUFRO consists of 650 research organizations from 100 countries. IUFRO th Division 8 is the latest division, founded at the 20 World Congress in 1995 by subdividing the previous Division 1, "Forest Environment and Silviculture". The objective of this first general Conference of Division 8 is to consider research needs in the 21 sl century for forest environment, and the integration of related fields of sciences to a new concept of environmental forest science.