Comparison of Three Major Forest Types of Mid Hills Region of Nepal for Conservation and Local Benefits

Abstract

Nepal’s historically successful practice of community forestry has demonstrated the importance of encouraging relevant stakeholder groups to participate in the decision-making process and foster successful management and use of forest resources. Concerns over potential inequity in policy construction can be mitigated by fully involving experts as well as local community forest users whose daily subsistence is heavily dependent on forest products. This study analyzes the preferences of conservation experts and community forest users in consideration of three forest types in the Mid Hills region of Nepal: Pinus roxburghii, Alnus nepalensis and Schima-Castanopsis. All three have distinct benefits for conservation as well as for the provision of forest products and potential to improve the local economy and livelihoods. Focus group discussions were conducted with both groups of stakeholders to identify and later compare local and conservation benefits for the three forest types with the help of the analytic hierarchy process through repeated pairwise comparisons. Overall, this study finds that Schima-Castanopsis is the preferred forest type for satisfying both the subsistence needs of local forest users and the conservation concerns of forestry experts. This study also addresses the importance of combining the views of both groups in order to create a representative and effective forest management policy.