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Understanding the multiple ways people value forests is important, as individual values regarding nature have been shown to partly determine willingness to participate in conservation initiatives. As individual values are influenced by past experiences, the way people value forests may be related to the ecosystem services they use and receive. We here aim to investigate if people value forests because of material and non-material benefits forest provide (material and non-material values), and if these values are defined by previous experiences associated with using forest resources and having frequent contact with forests. By interviewing 363 residents across 20 landscapes varying in forest cover in a post-frontier region in Amazonia, we evaluated: (1) if the use of forest resources-especially bushmeat, important for sustenance and cash income in virtually all tropical forests-is associated with attributing higher material value to forests; (2) whether the contact with forest (estimated by local forest cover and visits to forests) is associated with attributing higher non-material value to forests. As expected, respondents from households where hunting occurs and bushmeat consumption is more frequent attributed higher material value to forests, and those living in more deforested landscapes and that visited forests less often attributed lower non-material value to forests. The importance of bushmeat in shaping the way people value forests suggests that encouraging the sustainable use of this product will encourage forest conservation. Results also point to a potential dangerous reinforcing cycle: low forest cover and the loss of contact with forests may erode forest values and facilitate further deforestation. Engaging rural communities in forest conservation initiatives is challenging yet urgent in degraded landscapes, although harnessing appreciation for bushmeat could offer a starting point., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

This study evaluated whether processing non-timber forest products (NTFPs) and establishing trade partnerships between forest communities and companies enhance the outcomes of NTFP commercialization. In particular, we evaluated whether product processing, partnerships, or their combination was associated with a number of outcomes related to the well-being of forest inhabitants and forest conservation. We based our analyses on ethnographic and quantitative data (i.e., survey and systematic observations) gathered at seven communities from five societies of the Brazilian and Bolivian Amazon. Our results indicated that product processing and partnerships do not represent a silver bullet able to improve the results of NTFP commercialization in terms of well-being and conservation indicators. Compared with cases without interventions, households adopting partnerships but not product processing were most often associated with improved economic proxies of well-being (total income, NTFP income, food consumption and gender equality in income). In comparison, the combination of product processing and partnerships was associated with similar outcomes. Unexpectedly, product processing alone was associated with negative outcomes in the economic indicators of well-being. All of the investigated strategies were associated with less time spent in social and cultural activities. With respect to forest conservation, the strategies that included a partnership with or without processing produced similar results: while household deforestation tended to decrease, the hunting impact increased. Processing alone was also associated with higher levels of hunting, though it did not reduce deforestation. Our results indicate that establishing partnerships may enhance the outcomes of NTFP trade in terms of the financial outcomes of local communities, but practitioners need to use caution when adopting the processing strategy and they need to evaluate potential negative results for indicators of social and cultural activities. With respect to conservation, the three strategies are promising for reducing deforestation, but more pervasive impacts, such as hunting, might increase.