Household Dependency on Buffer Zone Community Forest and its Implication for Management of Chitwan National Park, Nepal

Debendra Bhandari,Zhou Jianhua

doi:10.18483/ijsci.1214

Abstract

Conservation of biodiversity in Protected Areas will be more challenging if local communities are heavily dependent on them for various forest products and subsistence needs. Thus this study sought to identify the demographic and socioeconomic variable that influence forest dependency exploring the relationship of forest dependency and household characteristics of the households of the Panbari Buffer Zone Community Forest User Group of Chitwan National Park, Nepal. A sample of 130 households was randomly selected for the household survey using stratified random sampling and collected was analyzed using logistic regression model. Logistic regression result indicate that wealth status of the poor household, household family size, livestock population, agricultural income and education are the five major determinants of forest dependency in Panbari Buffer Zone Community Forest. Policy interventions to ensure long-term success of landscape-level conservation of Chitwan National Park are needed to decrease dependence on forest resources expanding educational and training opportunities; and the policy measures that aim at increasing agriculture income, generating off-farm employment opportunities, supply of the alternatives of fuel wood energy and adopting agrisilvicultural system for the supply of fodder for the livestock.

Highlights

Forest dependency of the human beings is a multifaceted phenomenon due to the fact that forests provide a diverse stream of benefits to humans such as timber, fuel wood, fodder, non-timber forest products (NTFPs), recreational experience as a direct benefits and depends upon forests indirectly for things such as biodiversity, air and water quality, carbon sequestration, and other ecological services (Beckley 1998, Masozera 2002, Adam and EL Tayeb 2014)
Chitwan National Park (CNP) and its Buffer Zone is situated in southern part of Central Nepal which spreads over 4 districts: Chitwan, Nawalparasi, Parsa and Makawanpur having the area of 932 km2 and an area of 750 km2 has surrounded the park as its buffer zone (CNP 2013, DNPWC 2016)
Understanding the dependency of households on the buffer zone community forest of CNP is critical for developing management strategies of CNP and the management http://www.ijSciences.com plan of Panbari Buffer Zone Community Forest (PBZCF)

Summary

Introduction

Forest dependency of the human beings is a multifaceted phenomenon due to the fact that forests provide a diverse stream of benefits to humans such as timber, fuel wood, fodder, non-timber forest products (NTFPs), recreational experience as a direct benefits and depends upon forests indirectly for things such as biodiversity, air and water quality, carbon sequestration, and other ecological services (Beckley 1998, Masozera 2002, Adam and EL Tayeb 2014). The households’ dependency on the forest resources has motivated the policy makers to decentralize the approach of forest management to the evolution of community forestry (CF) as the dominant forest management strategy (Rai et al 2016). Buffer Zone Community Forest (BZCF) is the community-based forest management, which involves the forest areas and the forest users around the protected areas that aim the conservation of biodiversity and the sustainable use of natural resources by the local people living nearby areas. Fourth amendment (1993) to the National Park and wildlife Conservation Act, 1973 brought the concept of Buffer Zone in Nepal that gradually changed its policies for inclusion of local people in PAs management, bio-diversity conservation and community development in the periphery of PAs. One of the major objectives to bring the concept of

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Discussion

Conclusion