The purpose of this website is to provide a public resource for the collection and dissemination of information pertaining to the conservation and sustainable use of nontimber forest products in the United States.  International researchers should also find useful tools on the website, such as the bibliographic database, which has publications from throughout the world.

This website was conceived of simultaneously with a national assessment of NTFPs in the United States.  Partial funding for the website has come from grants written by Jim Weigand of ArrowWood Associates and includes the Turner Foundation, USDA Forest Service State and Private Forestry Cooperative Forestry Program and the Commission for Environmental Cooperation.  Fiscal sponsors for the funds include Pacific Forest Trust and the Pinchot Institute for Conservation. Fund administration includes ArrowWood Associates and the Institute for Culture and Ecology.  Additional funding to update the species and bibliographic database has come from the National Commission on Science for Sustainable Forestry which receives funding from the Surdna Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, and the National Forest Foundation.

The website is owned by the Institute for Culture and Ecology and Eric T. Jones supervises content development.  All copyrights are retained by the Institute for Culture and Ecology unless otherwise specified.

Thanks are extended to the USDA FS Pacific Northwest Research Station for providing general support such as office space, supplies and personnel for data entry on the databases.  Thanks to James Weigand (U.S. Forest Service) and David Pilz (PNW Research Station) for the scientific contributions to database content.  Gratitude is extended to Eliot Lee for preliminary technical development and to his company Anthro TECH which generously provided assistance at below market rates.  A sincere thanks is also extended to Alex Krohn and Gossamar Threads Inc. for exceptional technical work in setting up the mySQL platform for the Bibliographic and Species Databases.  Thanks is also extended to Lynn Schneider (Linfield College), David Landsman (University of Washington), Owen Rice (Independent Researcher) and Judy Mycowski (USDA Forest Sciences Lab - Portland) for their data entry assistance.