The importance of Non Wood Forest Products (NWFPs) contributing to rural livelihoods and alleviating rural poverty is well known. It is estimated that about 60 million highly forest dependent people in Latin America, West Africa and Southeast Asia, with an additional 400 to 500 million people especially communities living inside and on the fringes of forest areas depend on nwfp for food, shelter, medicine, cash income etc. Apart from meeting subsistence and cash income needs of the dependent communities, NWFPs also support large number of small to large scale enterprises engaged in processing and/or trading of NWFP and NWFP based products.

While there is growing appreciation of the importance of nwfps for rural households, especially of the very poor, there are concerns about the potential impact of nwfp collection on biodiversity also. Madhya Pradesh Minor Forest Produce Federation, IIFM and Madhya Pradesh Forest Department have since long been involved in providing livelihood opportunities to forest dwellers and rural households through some direct intervention and also through research and development initiatives. But it is strongly felt that there are many grey areas where still a lot is needed to be done. Further, many good thing are happening around the globe in the field of NWFP management related issues. There are plenty of success stories regarding sustainable livelihood through NWFP marketing & trading. Madhya Pradesh wishes to learn from such experiences. It is in this background MPMFP Federation is organizing an international conference on NWFP. The theme of the conference is "Management of NWFPs for Sustained Livelihood". It will be organized during 17-19 December 2011 in commemoration of International Year of Forestry and Completion of 150 years of Scientific Forestry. In Madhya Pradesh the main organizer of the event is MPMFP Federation and the co partner is IIFM. MPFD is the sponsor of the event. We are looking for national and international participation of experts and eminent personalities working in the field of NWFP during this prestigous knowledge sharing event.

The conference gives an opportunity for researchers, policy makers, managers, professionals from different private sectors in Asia and other regions of the world to exchange and share methodologies, approaches, information on products, market and lessons learnt from NWFPs conservation and development initiatives.

Call for Abstracts and Papers

Prospective authors are invited to submit abstracts of papers for presentation at technical sessions of the Conference. All abstracts should be written in English comprising 300 - 500 words. These abstracts will be reviewed for selection for oral and poster presentations. The deadline for abstract submission is 30 September 2025.

Each abstract must contain sufficient details for evaluation (including the approach, results, the concepts and the reasons why it should be considered an interesting message for the audience). Author(s) must select 5 - 8 keywords. Authors must indicate clearly on the Abstract Submission Form to which session the paper is intended (Abstract Submission). The presenting author (corresponding author) also must be clearly indicated. A participant may be the co-author of multiple papers; however, each author may present only one paper at the Conference.

Full papers must be prepared according to the Guidelines for authors. Authors are requested to follow the Manual for presentation of Technical Papers at the Conference and sessions. The details are available at conference website: www.nwfpcon.com

Information about the status of acceptance of the papers will be sent to the authors not later than 10 October 2025 by the Conference Secretariat. Full paper will be due on 30 November 2011. Payment of the registration fee by the presenting (corresponding) author must be made prior to the deadline of 25 November 2011. Accepted papers received from registered participants by this date will be published in the Souvenir of the Conference.

Abstracts and full papers should be submitted online at the Conference website www.nwfpcon. com. Corresponding author will be informed of the acceptance of their paper by 10 October 2011.

Conference Books/Papers shall be published in paper and digital format and widely distributed forestry research and policy making organization. Delegates will receive a copy of the book in paper or digital format at the time of registration. Papers are also archived at www.iifm.ac.in

Awards for best Oral & Poster Presentation for students

At the Conference, a total of four best oral presentations and four Poster Papers Presentations will be awarded by MFP Federation under students category. The award consists of a cash award of Rs 10000 for best full paper & Rs. 5000 for best poster presentation and a certificate from the Conference Steering committee.

Important Dates:

Sepetmber 30, 2011 - Abstract due
October 10, 2025 - Notification of acceptance
October 30, 2025 - Deadline for early Registration
November 30, 2025 - Full-length article due
Dec. 18 -19, 2011 - Conference
Dec. 22-23, 2011 - Post-conference trip

Contact Person & Address for Correspondence:

R.R.Okhandiar
CEO MFP Federation
Secretary
NWFP Conference Secretariat
MFP Processing and Research Centre (MFP-PARC)
Barkheda Pathani, BHEL Township, Bhopal – MP India, PIN: 462021
Ph: +91 755-2481965, 2417670 Fax: +91 755-2417670,
Website: www.nwfpcon.com, E-mail: [email protected]