The terms alternative, special, or secondary forest products include NTFPs as well as other woody materials not considered to be conventional timber. As the dynamics of resource extraction began to shift as early as the 1980s, forest practitioners started to look to these forest-based products as an undeveloped asset. Yvonne Everett, PhD, is Director of Research at WTRC and has been heavily involved in the organization's participatory ecological and community forestry research program. According to Dr. Everett, much of the work has focused on enhancing communication among members of local rural communities and public land management agency staff to promote joint information development. WRTC has sponsored many different kinds of workshops and meetings to bring people together, offering people a chance to meet outside of their usual settings and to leave with a list of contact names and addresses.
Workshops are open to the public, and anyone can attend.
As facilitator, it is WTRC's explicit role to make sure networks of people are connected. From there, common themes of interest usually begin to emerge. For instance, in one Prince's Pine regeneration study, we paid some of the people from the community to put those plots in, and both Forest Service people and wildcrafters helped identify where plots should be. In some cases, wildcrafters may join together from this type of networking to form their own organizations. In 1993, TAB incorporated as an agricultural cooperative with a focus on medicinals.