Toward Sustainability of Community-Based Forest Management

Abstract

This chapter illustrates a comparative scenario of four CBFM interventions in terms of socioeconomy, forest attributes , and legal, social, management, and resource system-related characteristics. Socioeconomic attributes reveal that villagers in respective area depend on forest resources (fuelwood, bamboo, timber, leaves, sungrass, vegetable) for cooking energy, house construction materials, food, and household income. Both VCF and Chunati PA are rich in plant species composition (consisting of more than 90 species), but tree density is highest in Betagi–Pomra CF (1164 trees/ha). Individual land ownership in Betagi–Pomra CF encouraged villagers to plant fast-growing and high-yielding tree species. Individual ownership , users’ management rights, well-defined boundary , small resource system , and social equality ensure relatively more sustainable management of forests in Betagi–Pomra CF, VCF, and AF projects than that of Chunati PA. Some policy implications are suggested for sustainability of various CBFM approaches, and recommendations are made to incorporate REDD+ schemes , introducing mutual rotating fund and collaboration of corporate agencies in CBFM.