Little institutional support is given to these endeavours even though a significant percentage of rural employment is related to these enterprises. As well, supportive infrastructure is lacking in processing, transportation and accessing appropriate markets. Economic necessity frequently impacts negatively on the environment. Forests are cut down to provide land for shifting agriculture, pasture or for other uses. This removal of productive forest lands is not conducive to sustainable development -neither for agricultural practices nor for natural resource conservation.
Much biodiversity is lost and the world's genetic storehouse becomes impoverished.
With the forests gone, foods that normally supplement diets or add valuable nutrients, during times of need, vanish. Local knowledge of traditional foods and medicinal plants is lost too because the forest has disappeared or because the people have acquired a dependence on purchased foods. A linkage which is often not made is the connection between deforestation, lack of fuelwood, food security and health. As deforestation reduces the available fuelwood, there are a number of possible consequences. Less time is spent cooking and more time is allocated to foraging for fuelwood.