What are forest resources in simple words?

Forest resources are all the useful things people get from forests. They include material goods such as timber, firewood, bamboo, fodder, fruits, honey, gums and medicinal herbs. Many people also count the services a forest gives, like clean water, fertile soil and stored carbon, as part of its resource value.

What is the difference between timber and non-timber forest products?

Timber is wood cut from tree trunks for building, furniture, plywood and paper. Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are everything else that people gather from a forest, such as leaves, flowers, seeds, honey, lac, gums, resins and medicinal plants. In India, NTFPs are also called minor forest produce, although they matter a great deal to tribal incomes.

Are forest resources renewable or non-renewable?

Forest resources are renewable, but only when they are used carefully. NCERT's new Class 8 book explains that timber stays renewable as long as forests are managed sustainably. If trees are cut faster than new ones can grow, the forest is used up and the resource is lost for a long time.

Which state has the largest bamboo bearing area in India?

According to ISFR 2023, Madhya Pradesh has the maximum bamboo bearing area, at 20,421 km². Arunachal Pradesh comes next with 18,424 km², followed by Maharashtra and Odisha. The bamboo bearing area of the whole country is estimated at 1,54,670 km², an increase of 5,227 km² over ISFR 2021.

What is MSP for minor forest produce?

MSP for minor forest produce is a government scheme that fixes a minimum price for items such as honey, lac, sal seeds and tamarind. It protects tribal gatherers from very low market prices. The scheme began in 2013 with 12 items. In a Rajya Sabha reply of 1 April 2026, the government said MSP had been notified for 87 items.

Forest Resources: Types, Uses and Economic Value

Forest resources are the goods and benefits that people obtain from forests. They include timber, fuelwood, bamboo, fodder, medicinal plants and many non-timber products such as honey, lac and gums. Forests also give environmental value, from fertile soil to stored carbon. Used wisely, forest resources renew themselves.

This page is part of our main guide on why forests are important. Here we look closely at what forests supply, how much those supplies are worth, and why their value goes beyond money.

What are forest resources?

A resource is anything in nature that people can use to meet their needs. NCERT’s new Class 8 book, Exploring Society: India and Beyond, sorts natural resources by use. Some are essential for life, some give us materials and some give us energy. Forests fit all three groups. They give food, they give wood to make things, and they give firewood to burn.

NCERT’s earlier Class 8 book, Resources and Development, lists what plants give us. Its list includes timber, fruits, nuts, latex, turpentine oil, gum, medicinal plants and paper. It also notes that plants produce oxygen and shelter animals.

Foresters often split forest resources into two groups:

Major forest produce: timber and fuelwood.
Minor forest produce (MFP): everything else, such as leaves, seeds, flowers, honey, lac, gums and herbs.

A Press Information Bureau release of 2 August 2013 explains that MFP is also known as Non-Timber Forest Produce (NTFP). The word “minor” does not mean these products matter little to the people who gather them.

What are the different types of forest resources?

The table below groups the main types. Each row lists common examples and how people use them.

Type of resource	Examples	Main uses	Indian example (source)
Timber	Sal, teak, deodar, chir pine, rosewood	Buildings, furniture, plywood	Deodar, a durable construction wood (NCERT Class 11)
Fuelwood	Branches, dead wood, small trees	Cooking and heating fuel	Collected by forest fringe villages (ISFR 2023)
Bamboo and cane	Bamboo culms and shoots	Baskets, building, brooms, food	Bamboo bearing area 1,54,670 km² (ISFR 2023)
Fodder	Grass, tree leaves	Feed for cattle, goats and sheep	Lopping and grazing near villages
Medicinal plants	Ashwagandha, neem, tulsi	Herbal medicines, home remedies	Himalayan region, Western Ghats (NCERT Class 9)
Food NTFPs	Honey, fruits, nuts, mushrooms, roots	Food and sale	Jharkhand, Odisha (NCERT Class 9)
Leaves, seeds, flowers	Tendu leaves, mahua flowers, sal seeds	Income, oil, local trade	Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh (NCERT Class 9)
Gums, resins and lac	Gum karaya, pine resin, kusumi lac	Industry and local trade	Lac and gum karaya covered by MSP (PIB)

Timber

Timber is wood from tree trunks, sawn for building and furniture. NCERT’s Class 11 book names teak, sal, shisham and sandalwood among the main species of India’s moist deciduous forests. It calls chir pine “a very useful commercial tree” of the Himalayas. Deodar, it says, is a durable wood mainly used in construction.

ISFR 2023 measures how much wood India’s trees hold. This volume is called growing stock. India’s total growing stock is estimated at 6,429.64 million m³. Of this, 4,478.89 million m³ lies inside forest areas and 1,950.75 million m³ in trees outside forests (TOF). Inside forests, sal (Shorea robusta) contributes the most volume, 11.43%, followed by teak at 4.46%.

Fuelwood

Fuelwood (firewood) is wood burnt for cooking and warmth. ISFR 2023 notes the “large dependence” of people and cattle in forest fringe villages on fuelwood, fodder, small timber and NTFPs. Trees on farms, bunds and homesteads also help meet India’s demand for fuelwood and industrial wood, the same report says.

Bamboo and cane

Bamboo is a fast-growing giant grass with woody stems. It is used for houses, mats, baskets, furniture and paper, and its tender shoots are eaten. According to ISFR 2023, India’s bamboo bearing area is 1,54,670 km², up 5,227 km² since ISFR 2021. Madhya Pradesh has the maximum area (20,421 km²), followed by Arunachal Pradesh (18,424 km²).

Fodder and grazing

Livestock depend on forests too. Villagers lop tree branches for leaves and cut grass as fodder, the food given to farm animals. NCERT’s Class 9 book notes that forests support livestock grazing. Uncontrolled lopping and grazing, however, can harm young trees.

Medicinal plants

Forests are a natural pharmacy. NCERT’s Class 9 book names ashwagandha, neem and tulsi as herbs from the Himalayan region and the Western Ghats. Tribal healers hold detailed knowledge of such plants and pass it down through generations. Some medicines come from cone-bearing trees as well; our page on the economic importance of gymnosperms explains resin, turpentine and the yew drug Taxol.

Non-timber forest products (NTFPs)

NTFPs are the many forest goods other than wood. NCERT’s Class 9 book lists tendu leaves, mahua flowers, honey, lac and bamboo as NTFPs that provide household income. It maps sal seeds and gums to Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Dry deciduous forests are a rich source; see our guide to tropical deciduous forest trees for tendu, mahua and khair.

What is the economic value of forest resources?

Forest resources feed several large industries and millions of small household budgets.

Industries and jobs

Timber supplies sawmills, furniture makers and plywood units. Pulpwood feeds the paper industry. ISFR 2023 included trees of 5-10 cm diameter in its growing stock count for the first time, because such trees are a major contributor to the paper and pulp industry. It also estimates the potential production of industrial wood from trees outside forests at 91.51 million m³ a year.

Worldwide, FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment 2025 puts wood removals at 3.86 billion m³ in 2023. About half of this was industrial roundwood and the other half woodfuel. The same report estimates that the forest sector employed at least 42.0 million people globally in 2022 as their main job. That was 1.2 per cent of all employment.

Value of non-timber products

NTFPs are harder to count because much of the trade is informal. FAO’s FRA 2025 says the reported value of NWFP removals (FAO’s term for non-wood forest products) was about USD 9.41 billion in 2020. Plant-based products made up nearly 80 per cent of that total. FAO adds that these figures probably underestimate the real contribution of such products to rural food security and livelihoods.

Income for tribal gatherers

In India, NTFPs are a lifeline for tribal families. The 2013 PIB release estimated that about 100 million forest dwellers depend on MFP for food, shelter, medicines and cash income. Gatherers are often poor and cannot bargain for fair prices.

To help them, the government approved a scheme in 2013 to buy MFP at a Minimum Support Price (MSP). It started with 12 items, including tendu, bamboo, mahua seed, sal leaf, sal seed, lac, wild honey, tamarind and gum karaya. On 1 April 2026, a Ministry of Tribal Affairs reply in the Rajya Sabha said MSP had been notified for 87 MFP items. Since 2013-14, states have procured 2,67,954.36 tonnes of MFP worth Rs 693.98 crore under the programme.

Value addition and tourism

Processing raises the price of forest goods. Honey can be bottled, lac refined and bamboo made into furniture. NCERT’s Class 9 book also links forests to cottage industries, handicrafts and ecotourism. It explains that a Geographical Indication (GI) tag marks a forest product whose quality is tied to its place of origin, which helps local communities earn more.

What is the environmental value of forest resources?

A forest’s worth is not only what can be sold. Its living trees, soil and wildlife do work that protects people for free.

Carbon storage. According to ISFR 2023, the carbon stock of India’s forests is 7,285.5 million tonnes. Soil organic carbon is the largest pool, at 55.06%.
Soil and water. NCERT’s earlier Class 8 book says vegetation cover slows surface runoff and helps store underground water. Roots also hold fertile soil in place.
Biodiversity. NCERT’s Class 11 book lists conserving biological diversity and the genetic pool among the aims of India’s forest policy.
Protection from disasters. The same policy aims to check soil erosion, the spread of deserts, floods and droughts.

Scientists group these benefits as ecosystem services: provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting. Our article on forest ecosystem services explains each group in detail.

How should forest resources be used sustainably?

NCERT’s new Class 8 book gives a clear rule. Timber is renewable only if the natural rhythm of regrowth is not disturbed. If we harvest timber faster than the forest can grow trees, the forest will eventually be depleted.

India’s approach mixes protection with fair use. NCERT’s Class 11 book describes agro-forestry, which grows trees and crops on the same land for food, fodder, fuel, timber and fruit. It also suggests that tribal people should be made growers of minor forest produce, not only collectors. Community rights, controlled harvesting and planting on wasteland all reduce pressure on natural forests.

When forests are cleared for other land uses, these resources disappear. Read deforestation: meaning and causes to see why, and forest conservation: methods and importance for ways to protect them. For a ready-made exam essay, try our essay on the importance of forests.