WHICH ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT NON-WOOD FOREST PRODUCTS IN THE CASE OF IALOMIȚA COUNTY?

Abstract

Non-wood forest products (NWFPs) represent a veritable resource base for development, providing income to support livelihoods and promoting the competitiveness of rural economies. In Romania, NWFPs are mainly represented by forest fruits, mushrooms, game, and medicinal plants, with a total of almost 350 species of interest. Across the country the distribution of NWFPs is not uniform, being dependent on forests. The goal of this paper was to highlight the most important NWFPs for Ialomița County. Therefore, four categories of NWFPs were selected and 19 criteria were used. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used in order to systematically evaluate both quantitative and qualitative criteria and to assess the performance of selected alternatives (i.e. NWFPs) by means of pairwise comparisons. The analyses were carried out by the aid of the Expert Choice Desktop software. Black locust honey was the most promising non-wood forest product for Ialomița County when all the 19 selected criteria received an equal importance.