Ecosystem services are the chief product of the forest. I think a slogan prevailed in one of the environmental movement in India has something to say,

"What does a forest bear,

Food, Fodder, Fresh Air"

It is estimated that 60 million indigenous people are almost wholly dependent on forests, while 350 million people depend on forests for a high degree for subsistence and income (World Bank 2004).

what if these people cut trees and use it for fuel to warm their homes, what will be the case? for sure a huge amount of trees will be lost per year. so the new thinking and a brilliant action is to give these people an alternative of wood, and to take use of the forest as a source for their own income without harming the forest. that will be through the non timber products

I think, timber harvesting do not result in reduction of carbon sink by itself. This is over harvesting that cause such a problem. Indeed, lots of researches showed that if you harvest your woods based on sustainable planing, by storing more carbon in tissues which could be used for woody product, you stored more carbon. In addition, we know that in old-growth forest the rate of photosynthesis is to somehow equal to respiration which mean that ecosystem no longer act as a sink, but it is still a carbon pool. By harvesting operation based on a sustainable planing, and using harvested woods as woody products rather than burning wood as fuel, we can expect more co2 sequestration.

In developing countries, like my country, the biggest problem is changing the land usage from forest to farms and urban areas.

for India according to most records and references India was one of the first in the world to introduce scientific forest management that was in 1840. and according to FAO, 2002 the estimates for India's forest cover was about 64 million hectares, or 19.5% of the country's area which indeed have a great effect of the NGP positively

Dear Hormoz, I agree with you totally and harvesting forest must undergo a schedule plan in a suitable way and through sorting the cutting process and to leave the nature act for regeneration as the conditions are good, or re-planting as the conditions are bad

en patagonia Chilena existen muchos PFNM entre ellos hongos y frutos comestibles, mas de 200.000 empleos en Chile generan estos productos, mayor participación de las mujeres

Jaime, gracias por este informacion, y quiero sabir como se arreglan el uso de estos productos, hay communidades o algunas unidades que se la gente intregan en eso, o cual quiera pueda aprovechar sin regulaciones

No hay regulación para la extracción de estos productos, los recolectores estan dispersos en diferentes localidades rurales. Existe bajo nivel de agregación de valor, se vende a compradores (intermediarios) foraneos generalmente a granel.

saludos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-timber_forest_product

I agree with Sudev, NTFPs are all products of biological origin from the forest other than timber. Yes, forests have a variety of non timber products that are useful to the rural communities adjacent to the forest in meeting thier day to day needs i.e. subsistence consumption and generation of income. Refer to my recent article  in Journal of Agricultural Studies, 2016, 4(4):1-13

This is an excellent question with many possible answers.   In addition to the very helpful answers already given, there is a bit more to add.

An extensive survey of non-forest products such as herbal medicine derived from shrubs is given in

http://www.eric-lehmann.com/Papers/LehEtAl11Joint.pdf

Another remarkable source of non-forest products is given in

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235421078_Bamboo_Shoots_A_Novel_Source_of_Nutrition_and_Medicine

Article Bamboo Shoots: A Novel Source of Nutrition and Medicine

Let me share with you my latest article on Non-timber forest products.Article Non-timber forest product utilization under community forest...