BAN PONG, Thailand — “Look at these ones over here!” calls Chamran Tahpan, as she crouches next to a mound of damp leaves on the forest floor. A cluster of mushrooms sprouts from the center of the earthy-smelling pile. “These are hed khon, termite mushrooms,” says Rachaprapa Kamphud, 55, who leads the Ban Pong community forest and fire management group in northern Thailand’s Lampang province. Edible mushrooms like hed khon, along with a variety of other nontimber products, such as bamboo shoots, leafy greens and red ant eggs, can fetch high prices in local markets, she says, offering villagers a modest income. By keeping the forest soil moist using small check dams designed to slow the flow of minor streams, Rachaprapa says they need only pile up humid leaves and soil to yield wild mushrooms year-round. There’s no need to set fire to the leaf litter to stimulate their growth — a common but risky method many nearby communities rely on. “The moist fallen leaves are a natural fertilizer and give the trees the nutrients they need to grow tall,” Rachaprapa says as she leads 10 members of the community forest group — eight of them women — through the trees to harvest edible items and carry out repairs to a newly built check dam. “Even in the dry season, there’s moisture in our forest soil.” Rachaprapa and her fellow volunteers began restoring the 40-hectare (100-acre) forest from a peanut plantation in 2007. They planted native trees and revived the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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