Hundreds of millions of people in the tropics need both wild harvests and other forms of economic development for their well-being

Global resource demand and large-scale conservation interventions are diminishing tropical communities’ access to food, fiber, fodder and fuel from wild (e.g. uncultivated) resources. Theory disagrees on whether the wellbeing of wild harvesting households will thus be diminished, or if it can be improved by a transition to non-wild livelihoods and other economic development. Here we present a cross-sectional analysis identifying in which contexts households with non-wild livelihoods have experienced superior food security and life satisfaction across the tropics, and vice versa—contexts where wild harvesting continues to be associated with better outcomes. Using a dataset of ~10,800 households representative of diverse peri-urban and rural development tropical contexts, we model that in 2015, ~650 million people in the region were directly harvesting wild resources. Regardless of livelihood type, the wellbeing outcomes of all households increased with electrical infrastructure, proximity to cities and household capitals. Non-wild harvesters achieved superior outcomes in most, but not all, contexts. Wild harvesters maintained relatively high outcomes in more remote and less converted areas, and amongst households with lower physical capital (cultivated land, productive assets). Our results suggest that while reduced access to wild resources is more likely to disrupt the wellbeing of remote and less capitalized households, overall improvements to wellbeing have historically been associated with improved access to infrastructure, markets and other household capitals. Our results thus support policies that balance maintaining access to wild resources while pursuing sustainable and equitable longer-term improvements in services, infrastructure and markets.