Spatial, Temporal, and Economic Constraints to the Commercial Extraction of a Non–timber Forest Product: Copaíba (Copaifera spp.) Oleoresin in Amazonian Reserves 1 PETER NEWTON * ,2,3 ,ANDREW R. WATKINSON 2 , AND CARLOS A. PERES 2 2 Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom; email: andrew.watkinson@lwec.org.uk; email: c.peres@uea.ac.uk 3 International Forestry Resources and Institutions, School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, 440 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA *Corresponding author; e-mail: newton.pete@gmail.com Spatial, Temporal, and Economic Constraints to the Commercial Extraction of a Non–Timber Forest Product: Copaíba (Copaifera spp.) Oleoresin in Amazonian Reserves. The increasing prevalence of government– and NGO–sponsored programs to encourage commercial non– timber forest product (NTFP) extractivism in the humid tropics has highlighted the need for ecological and socioeconomic appraisal of the viability of extractive industries. We adopted a novel integrative approach to examine NTFP resource potential and produced credible landscape–scale estimates of the projected value of an economically important Amazonian NTFP, the medicinal oleoresin of Copaifera trees, within two large contiguous extractive reserves in Brazilian Amazonia. We integrated results derived from previous spatial ecology and harvesting studies with socioeconomic and market data, and mapped the distribution of communities within the reserves. We created anisotropic accessibility models that determined the spatial and temporal access to Copaifera trees in permanently unflooded (terra firme) and seasonally flooded (várzea) forests. Just 64.9 % of the total reserve area was accessible, emphasizing the distinction between the actual resource stock and that which is available to extractors. The density of productive tree species was higher in the várzea forests, but per– tree productivity was greater in the terra firme forests, resulting in similar estimates of oleoresin yield per unit area (64–67 ml ha –1 ) in both forest types. A greater area of the várzea forests was accessible within shorter travel times of ≤250 minutes; longer travel times allowed access to increasingly greater volumes of oleoresin from the terra firme forests. The estimated total volume of oleoresin accessible within the two reserves was 38,635 liters for an initial harvest, with projected offtake for a subsequent harvest falling to 8,274 liters. A household that extracted just 2 liters of oleoresin per month could generate 5 % of its mean income; market data suggested that certification could increase the value of the resource fivefold. Our approach is valuable in that it incorporates a range of methodologies and quantitatively accounts for the numerous constraints to the commercial viability of NTFP extraction. Restrições Espaciais, Temporais, e Econômicas na Exploração Commercial de um Produto Florestal Não–Madeireiro: Óleoresina de Copaíba (Copaifera spp.) em Reservas da Amazônia. A prevalência emergente de programas de ordem governamental ou não que promovem a exploração comercial de produtos florestais não–madeireiros (PFNMs) tem acentuado a importância de uma avaliação quantitativa da viabilidade demográfica destas indústrias extrativistas. Nós adotamos uma nova abordagem integradora para examinar o potencial de produção de um PFNM, gerando estimativas numa escala de grandes paisagens do valor econômico da óleoresina de copaibeiras (Copaifera spp.) em duas reservas contíguas de uso sustentável na Amazônia brasileira ao longo do Rio Juruá. Estas estimativas integram resultados derivados de estudos da ecologia de paisagem, acessibilidade física dos coletores, valor socioeconômico e de mercado do produto, e distribuição espacial da população humana 1 Received 19 November 2011; accepted 30 April 2012; published online 16 May 2012. Economic Botany, 66(2), 2012, pp. 165–177 © 2012, by The New York Botanical Garden Press, Bronx, NY 10458-5126 U.S.A.