Dear Readers,

The year 2001 starts with a bumper issue of ETFRN-News. Being the guest editors of this special edition, Christiane and I are indebted to all authors for their contributions and excellent collaboration.

When the idea of an issue on NTFPs came up at the ETFRN Steering Committee meeting last year we were all enthusiastic. But soon after starting the preparations a number of crucial questions arose: what specific themes should be addressed, is a pre-structuring required, what about a regional approach, who could or should be the authors and how to cope with the given time frame?

The reaction to our first call for papers was rather scanty. Unexpectedly our second attempt produced an overwhelming response. This left us facing the dilemma of how to fit all the papers into a single issue with limited space and funds for printing. As we did not want to leave out any, we urged all authors to really condense their contributions, to omit reference lists, figures and tables as far as possible. Various authors kindly left it to the editors to shorten their papers which is to be acknowledged.

In some cases the editors further shortened texts containing large amounts of detail and, exceptionally, when tables were omitted the main contents were inserted into the text. Of course, this may mean that some important information has not been included. We do regret this and hope for your understanding as the long versions would have led to an unsolvable situation.

The papers presented here provide a broad coverage of NTFP issues, both in thematic and regional terms. We have grouped the different contributions under a number of headings although these are not totally appropriate for all papers. In any case, it is the contents that are important, and these provide a considerable amount of very interesting information, specific experiences as well as contradicting viewpoints which we hope will encourage further discussions and exchange of ideas.

We wish all a pleasant reading.

Jochen Heuveldop and Christiane Then
Institute for World Forestry, Hamburg, Germany

We are grateful to Jochen Heuveldop and Christiane Then for editing this bumper issue of the ETFRN News; and to Kate Schreckenberg for the final editing.

Jane Thornback, ETFRN Acting Coordinator