Abstract
Edible wild mushrooms and plants have long been harvested in rural communities. As most of these non-timber forest products are self-consumed, few valuation studies have been conducted. This study investigated current condition and trend of the harvesting activities qualitatively through in-depth interview at Natauchi District of Nanao City, Ishikawa Prefecture and tried to estimate the economic and cultural values. Provisioning services were valuated using the market price of major harvested products. We found that harvesting these products provides large economic value for each household. For cultural services, both the harvesting activities and harvested products have significant social value to transfer traditional food culture and knowledge including experience and techniques required both for harvesting and processing through catalyzing communication in and out of the community.
