Title: Prospects of Domestication and Marketing of Selected Non-Timber Forest Products in the Mid- Hills of Nepal: A Case Study of Ghatte Khola Sub-watershed, Dolakha District

In the mid hills of Nepal, where there is less off farm opportunities, mainly the poor section of the society are engaged in NTFPs related occupation like collection and domestication to supplement their households need. The decreasing availability of the NTFP resources in the recent year has led people plant NTFPs to some limited extent in their private land in order to be able to augment the supply for the NTFPs. But the domestication of NTFPs is not as rapid as expected. So this study particularly focuses on the why the farmers are reluctant to adopt domestication. It tries to see the prospects and problems of domestication in the mid-hills of Nepal from economic, ecological and legal perspectives. Required data was collected in the Ghatte Khola sub-watershed that covers part of Dolkha district in the central middle hills of Nepal. Two sets of structured questionnaires were used to interview the collectors and domesticators separately. Total 105 households were interviewed. Nine village level traders and eight district level traders were also interviewed to assess the marketing system and problems and constraints of marketing at trader's level. Group discussion was also conducted to know the NTFPs found in the study area and a thorough hike of the watershed was done before the work was commenced to be familiar with the local people.