Abstract
The farm and forestry divide was a slip of development strategy of the dominant reductionist views about people and nature. The separate policies, institutional as well as bio-physical boundaries of farm and forestry and the divided roles of the farmers and service providers has resulted the greater extent of failure in both the agriculture as well as forestry to improve the local food system, income/employment and the fragile ecosystem. The community based forestry, traditionally with significant buffering role to farm and forest interface, was dragged and boxed into orthodox forestry domain - leading this failure. This paper critically examines the scope of rebuilding farm forest relations for food security and environmental sustainability analyzing the historical trajectories of farm forest divide. It analyzes the potential of community forestry to bring them together for food security and environmental sustainability. We argue that a transformative agro-forestry approach must adapt in view with to address the key issues of food security, local livelihoods and environmental degradation including climate change hazards. In specific, relatively less labour intensive low input agro ecological approach of producing food, wood and good (public) together can be successfully reintroduced. In the changing socio-economic and environmental context, rethinking on rebuilding farm forestry interface is imperative, and the transformative agriculture can play a significant role in bridging these two systems towards more productive, viable and sustainable solutions for future. However, it demands very genuine initiative towards integrating farm with forest, productivity with sustainability and equity of resources. Along with the appropriate agroforestry technology, the effort should also be in place to transform policies and institutions that address the issues of resource access and ownership.
Highlights
Community Forestry (CF) practices in Nepal, with its journey of more than three decades, has been established as a prominent approach for the conservation and restoration of the degraded forest lands
While the debate has initiated among scholars and politicians to bring more than 18000 community forestry user groups (CFUGs) into active forest management to enhance the food security and livelihoods of forest-dependent poor users
These 18,000 plus CFUGs are managing over 1.4 million hectares of forest land
Summary
Community Forestry (CF) practices in Nepal, with its journey of more than three decades, has been established as a prominent approach for the conservation and restoration of the degraded forest lands. This paper intends to look into the historical development of community forestry practice beyond agroforestry and seeks to bring the debate on sustainable management of natural resources through integrated farm forest system that could address the issue of food security, migration and climate change in the changing context. This is based on the desk review of relevant literatures, field observation interaction and reflection, and authors own experience. This paper is divided into four major sections- Introduction on farm forest interface, description on historical trajectories, key finding and conclusion
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