Community Forestry Program Research Articles

Changing Pattern and Drivers of Land Use and Land Cover in Bagmati Province of Nepal

Land use and land cover (LULC) represents the physical component of the Earth's environment, and often changes as a result of natural and anthropogenic activities. This study carried out changing patterns and orientations of LULC types of Bagmati province of Nepal by using satellite images between 1996 and 2016. The study applied a classification scheme through support vector machines (SVM) for the period from 1996 to 2006, and 2006 to 2016. Our study explored that built-up area expansion was the major change witnessed which increased from 85.25 km2 in 1996 and sharply increased and labeled 250.06 km2 in 2016. Similarly, the forest land of the province increased by 329.02 km2 between 1996 and 2016. The status of cultivated land was found slightly decreasing trend, which was noted at 6113.50 km2 in 1996 and labeled at 5725.82 km2 in 2016. The shrubland of the province declined by 272.03 km2 from 1851.67 km2 in 1996 to 1579.64 km2 in 2016. However, the status of snow/ ice cover found at fluctuated form, which was noted 774.27 km2 in 1996, 1297.43 km2 in 2006, and 828.92 km2 in 2016. The increasing population trend is the main driver of the high rate of built-up area expansion and contraction of the cultivated land. Community forestry programs highly supported the expansion of forest cover. The proper implementation and improvement of the existing policy are the major concerns for sustainable LULC management in the province.

Examining socio‐ecological transitions and new human–wildlife relations in farming landscapes of the Nepal Himalaya

AbstractWildlife invasion into farmlands is emerging as an acute problem in the Himalayas, threatening farm‐based livelihood systems of smallholder rural communities. The problem is severe in the areas where successful forest restoration has been achieved by community forestry programmes alongside massive outmigration. Such evolving dynamics have created new conceptual and empirical discourses on conservation, nature‐society relations and human‐wildlife interactions, as some wild animals have become pests for farming communities. Consequently, the historical co‐existence and relationships between subsistence communities and local ecosystems have been destabilized. By mobilizing the concepts of forest transition and agrarian transition, we explore these new and emerging relationships between the growing wildlife problem and deteriorating people's livelihood by examining the nature, extent and drivers of the new human‐wildlife interactions and provide critical insights towards effectiveness of current policies and practical responses.

Household characteristics and common property forest use: complementarities and contradictions

Being limited in supply but accessible for community usage, sustainable management of Common pool resources is still an important question facing both development planners and the academia. Experience from community forestry program in Nepal, and elsewhere, has so far indicated that poorer households are still marginalized even if resources are managed under community ownership. In this paper, I seek to analyze the socio-economic attributes of households that determine labor allocation decisions for forest product collection activities. This will help better understand why poorer groups have not been benefited from the management of community forests. I will then highlight the need for more effective policy and institutional interventions that would help ensure efficient and equitable access to the local level natural resource base.

Empowerment or marginalization: a debate in community forestry in Nepal

The impact of community forestry program in Nepal is debated around the potentials for empowerment and risk of marginalization. This article draws some evidences of both scenarios. Evidences in the filed show that community forest management process can be a forum for all users including women, poor and 'lower' castes on the one hand, and equally it can be a vehicle for theelite group of people to legitimize their interests by the unconscious consent of the users, on the other. This articles concludes with a recommendation for monitoring policy implementation and democratizing the Forest User Groups at local level in a way that enables the poor and marginalized to articulate their interests and needs to the decision making process of the forest resourcemanagement.

Community Forest Program and Women Empowerment: A Study Gorkha District

Globalization has had a powerful impact on individuals and societies. Some have argued that Nepal entered the age of globalization only in the 1980—after Nepal began to liberalize rules of international trade. Globalization however, also began to impact individuals and societies in Nepal because of the expanding presence of international development agencies there. One such expansion of international agencies was in the community forestry sector. This paper explores how the internationally driven community forestry program in the Gorkha District of Nepal and the associated Community Forest User Group (CFUG) there, is empowering local women. Although forest conservation programs started from 1960s, the initiation of the community forestry program in 1993 helped convert the nationalized forests into community forests that were handed over to local communities. The shift of the ownership and management responsibility of local forests to the local community (CFUG) also shifted the privilege and power to the locals. The initial intent of the program was to protect forest and wildlife and mitigate the hazards caused by deforestation. In time, however, the program was expanded to the holistic development of the community, including the empowerment of women within such community.

Revitalizing community forestry in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia: A property right perspective

Severe deforestation, land degradation, and the lack of forest products in Ethiopia have necessitated the implementation of a community forestry program since the 1980s by mobilizing the local communities. However, there have been incidents indicating that many of the community forests are either degrading or remaining unproductive. While community forests are, in principle, the collective property of the local community, empirical evidence concerning how property rights impact their management and their role in enhancing rural livelihoods and environmental rehabilitation is lacking. This study aims to investigate the performance of community forestry through the lens of property rights and tenure security, in order to uncover the challenges impeding community forestry in Ethiopia, with a focus on community forests in the Amhara Region. The study gathered primary data on community forest management from two community forests located in East Gojam and North Wollo, using questionnaires, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and field observations. Additionally, secondary data on legal frameworks were collected from institutions involved in community forestry. The data analysis employed descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. The findings of the study revealed that a majority of respondents (91%) lacked clarity regarding the objectives of establishing community forests, and about 95% claimed that community forests belong to the state. These incidents have led to diminished interest in continuing the program. The study highlighted that the community forestry program suffers from inadequate policy and legal provisions, chronic institutional instability, overlapping mandates, and limited community engagement. These factors have weakened property rights, which are reflected in tenure insecurity and the absence of individual household benefit packages. Consequently, it can be concluded that community forest interventions have been promoted based on general belief in the importance of trees for rural livelihoods and ecosystem rehabilitation, rather than as part of a deliberate and directed policy and strategy. In summary, revitalizing community forestry in Ethiopia necessitates a thorough understanding of property rights and tenure security issues. In this regard, it is imperative for government agencies to enact a clear national strategy for community forestry development and adopt a supportive role to enable communities to establish robust community forestry institutions to safeguard their rights while fostering community forestry and environmental protection activities.

Mapping and Understanding Changes in Tree Cover in Nepal: 1992 to 2016

Since the 1980s, Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, has gained worldwide recognition for its successful community forestry program. Researchers, however, have not previously documented the spatially explicit impacts of this forest transition because of the topographic effects, e.g., shading, clouds, snow, and ice, hindered remote-sensing imagery analysis. This multi-disciplinary research project used United States Geological Survey (USGS) Landsat 5, 7, and 8 surface reflected-correct imagery from 1988 to 2016 that were available in Google Earth Engine to map forest cover change across the country. We then used a RandomForest (machine learning method) and multilevel regression analyses to assess associations between changes in forest cover and physiographic and socio-economic variables. We found that between 1992 and 2016, forest cover in Nepal almost doubled. Among other variables, being a member of a community-forestry user group, and receiving remittance income from children who had migrated elsewhere to work had a positive impact on forest cover.

Community forestry dominates the recent land greening amid climate change in Nepal

The Himalaya Plateau including Nepal is ‘greening up’ that has important implications to ecosystem services such as water supply, carbon sequestration, and local livelihoods. Understanding the combined causes behind greening is critical for effective policy makings in forest management and climate change adaptation towards achieving sustainable development goals. This national scale study comprehensively examined the natural and anthropogenic drivers of the long-term trend of vegetation dynamics across Nepal by correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis. We integrated multiple sources of data including global satellite-based leaf area index (LAI), climate data, landcover data, and forest land management information. Our study reveals a remarkable annual mean LAI increase of 22% (0.009 m2 m−2 yr−1) (p < 0.05) from 1982 to 2020, with an acceleration in the rate of increase to 0.016 m2 m−2 yr−1 (p < 0.05) after 2004. The community forestry (CF) program, forest area changes, and soil moisture availability accounted for 40%, 12%, and 10% of LAI temporal variability, respectively. Our analysis found soil moisture and forest area changes to be the primary drivers of the greening trend before 2004, while CF and forest expansion were the dominant factors thereafter. Additionally, interannual vegetation dynamics were significantly influenced by winter precipitation, incoming solar radiation, and pre-monsoon soil moisture. The projections based on four Earth System Models from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 suggest that Nepal’s greening trend is expected to continue at a rate of 0.009 m2 m−2 yr−1 (p < 0.05) throughout the 21st century. We conclude that forest management program (CF) amid climate change that alters water and energy conditions have enhanced land greening, posing both opportunities and risks to ecosystem services in Nepal. This study provides much needed national-level information for developing forest management policies and designing Nature-based Solutions to respond to climate change and increasing demands for ecosystem services in Nepal.

Impact of community forestry program on rural livelihood strategy under socioeconomic transition: A case study in the Central Dry Zone of Myanmar

Livelihood diversification is a common strategy to adjust to economic and environmental shocks and reduce poverty. This paper compared the livelihood strategies of community forest user group households with non-community forest households as a case study in the central dry zone in Myanmar. Employing data from field surveys with a sample size of 189 households through stratified sampling, scores were given for five livelihood assets with 18 decision variables, and sectoral classification of livelihood diversification was applied. Results suggested that the community forestry program ensured the secure use of local people's land rights and significantly contributed to the daily needs of community forest user group households. In addition, the community forestry program provided working capital to its members through working on natural assets such as agroforestry, livestock, and off-farm (jaggery). Social, natural, and human assets play an essential role in the diversification patterns of local people under rural transition. This analysis showed that the community forest user group households faced three entry barriers which are weakness in social networking, high mobility of its members, and an insecure financial support system to move to Community Forestry based small business.

Allies for subsistence: poverty alleviation in community forestry limited by powerful actors

Over one billion people in the world depend on forests to meeting livelihood needs and more than half of them engage in community-based forest management. Community forestry has the potential of making important contributions in achieving the sustainable development goals; however, their positive effects on local livelihoods have been questioned. Actors, with their interests and power balance, can be important factors explaining the success of community forestry by shaping the decision-making process. Hence, the aim of our study was to analyze the economic performance of community forestry across the world, through its contribution to poverty reduction and explain how the economic outcome relates to the interests of the powerful actors. Community forestry from seven countries was analyzed including cases in Asia (Nepal, Indonesia, Vietnam), Africa (Namibia and Cameroon), and Europe (Germany and Albania). Data were collected with a sequence design method aiming to identify the participating actors and their power. A multivariate principal components analysis was conducted to capture the power dynamics within each community forestry. Results showed that community forestry programs do not always lead to poverty alleviation. The economic outcomes can be linked to the interests of the most powerful actors which in most cases do not desire a high economic outcome but rather promote contributions up to subsistence level.

Analisis Partisipasi Masyarakat dalam Program Perhutanan Sosial (Studi Kasus di Kabupaten Sanggau Propinsi Kalimantan Barat)

Participation is one of the benchmarks for the success of the Community Forestry program, a development program in the forestry sector that provides access and increases the community’s capacity in managing state forests. This research aims to analyze the level of community participation in managing state forests in the Community Forestry scheme. The participation level was measured on three stages of activity (planning, implementation, and evaluation) using the Arnstein participation concept. Data were collected using in-depth interview techniques, distributing questionnaires, and document reviews. The data analysis employs a qualitative descriptive analysis approach and non-parametric statistics. The participation forms include contributions of thoughts, ideas, suggestions, contributions of energy in planning, implementation, and evaluation activities. This research suggests that the participation level in the study area is in the delegated power stage, through projects/activities carried out by outsiders to achieve specific goals. The Hkm in Sanggau Regency was initiated and facilitated by various parties with intensive and sustainable empowerment activities.

IMPACT OF AGROFORESTRY SYSTEMS: A REVIEW

Agroforestry is a collective name of all agricultural processes related to the scientificmanagement of land that increases overall production under different manners. The security of our natural resources is decreasing every day, these processes will increase the pressure on natural forests andagriculture. We are staying on the stage where we have to take a hard decision to conserve our naturalresources and their sustainability. In this context, agroforestry makes sure a scientific solution to all theseproblems which provide a vast series of good public services. Under this review paper, we discussed variousenvironmental services and conclude that the incorporation of native tree species on farmland can diversifies the farm income and promote maximum use of land. While, Nutrient pumping is one of the best intangibleenvironmental services of the agroforestry system in which productivity of land can be utilized sharply, atthe same time agroforestry boosts the soil health in the course of decomposition of raw materials.Biodiversity and Carbon sequestration in agroforestry systems is typically higher than in conventionalagricultural systems. Two or more interacting plant species in a given area create a more complex habitatthat can support a wider variety of fauna. Tree cover accounts for more than 75% of the global carbon pool.Agroforestry can significantly contribute to climate change mitigation along with adaptation benefits.Adoption of agroforestry drove carbon storage and increased livelihoods simultaneously among small-scalefarmers. Agroforestry has a wide range of systems and practices, with their selection and use-dependent onecological, biophysical, and social factors. The main focus of agroforestry is to meet the needs of rural peoplein developing countries in a sustainable manner. Its growth and implementation have been closely linkedwith social and community forestry programs in developing countries.

Local perception and attitude toward community forest concessions in the Democratic Republic of Congo

The effects of community forestry on biodiversity conservation and local development have been highlighted in Africa and elsewhere. However, little is known on the perception and attitude of local forest users toward community forestry programs. This study aimed to address this gap by identifying the factors that influence the perception and attitude of local forest users toward Local Community Forest Concessions (LCFCs) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). A survey of 138 households was conducted in three villages of the Bisemulu LCFC in eastern DRC. The responses to the close-ended questions were analyzed with a multinomial Probit regression to determine the factors explaining LCFC perception. The results revealed that the key factors determining positive attitude toward the LCFC include education, age, occupation, knowledge of the legal framework and family size. However, challenges remain to the local acceptability of the LCFC, as government employees, elders, youth and larger households expressed negative attitudes. Awareness campaigns mobilizing civil society organizations that have higher level of trust in the communities may overcome some of the challenges. Administrative procedures and the associated costs were seen as major obstacles to LCFC implementation and operation. Procedure simplification and funding support to the LCFCs would thus be needed. The results of this study will contribute to the formulation of sustainable forestry policies to make LCFCs a lever for local development in the DRC and elsewhere.

PENILAIAN DAMPAK HUTAN KEMASYARAKATAN MELALUI SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS FRAMEWORK

Management forest area in concurrently through community forestry programs is an alternative to social forestry programs that involve communities to reduce problems with forest resource pressures. Gapoktan Beringin Jaya is one of the community forest groups bring of forest management and utilization activities by empowering local communities that have an impact on sustainable livelihoods. Therefore to find out the impact is carried out with the sustainable livelihoods framework to evaluate the impact and find out sustainable livelihood strategies. The results of this study are changes in community forestry that occur significantly through the sustainable livelihoods framework for livelihood assets, which are natural capital including owned land, timber species and non-timber forest product types. Human capital includes the type of training and the number of children going to school. Financial capital includes sources of income and loans. Social capital includes organizations, social networks, levels of trust and mutual assistance, and physical capital includes housing conditions, the number of motor vehicles and the number of electronic equipment.

Institutions and power relations and the implementation of community forestry: a case study of Taiwan

Abstract Policy implementation outcomes occur through the interplay between the political interests and power relationships of actors within the underlying institutional arrangements. Using the Community Forestry Program in Taiwan as a case study, this study aims to (1) identify how the historical development of forestry policies shapes current institutional arrangements and the political interests of actors, (2) determine how institutional arrangements shape the power relationships and interactions between actors and (3) understand how these interactions produce the policy implementation outcomes. Focusing on eastern Taiwan, 24 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The respondents included officers at different tiers of Taiwan’s forestry authority and the communities that had participated in the policy between 2013 and 2017. Findings from the thematic analysis reveal that the forestry officers and communities have divergent political interests and expectations for the policy, and when disagreements arose, the political interests of forestry officers often prevailed over those of the communities. These findings further exemplify the state’s dominance in Taiwan’s forest management, wherein local communities are placed at the periphery and power has not yet been devolved formally to the communities under the existing institutional arrangements. Amendments to the broader legal framework are required to alter the existing power relationships and achieve decentralization of forest resource management.

Comparison of benefits, stakeholders, implementation, and locations of community forestry in Taiwan and Indonesia based on experts’ views

ABSTRACT This study compares the benefits, stakeholders, program implementation, and locations of community forestry (CF) programs in Taiwan and Indonesia based on expert views. An online survey was submitted to 49 experts between December 2019 and January 2020. We evaluated CF benefits, stakeholder roles, and available programs in both countries using the Friedman and Hollander–Wolfe tests. Concerning benefits, Taiwan and Indonesia differed considerably, in that environmental, economic, and social benefits of CF in Taiwan were all assigned equal values. However, in Indonesia, economic benefits (R = 55.0) had the highest score. Regarding stakeholders’ contributions, community organizations (R = 99.5) constituted the highest contribution in Taiwan, while the government (R = 79.5) was the dominant stakeholder in Indonesia. The government mostly contributed by providing financial support (R = 67.5) for community organization development in Taiwan, while in Indonesia, it focused on devolving forestland and forest resources (R = 61.0) to communities. The contributions of non-governmental organizations in facilitating CF were the same in Taiwan and Indonesia. In terms of the available programs, Taiwan and Indonesia also differed, indicated by the community participation motives that were equally important to increase income, protect forests, and conserve biodiversity and ecosystem in Taiwan, whereas in Indonesia, increasing income (R = 63.0) was the most important to communities. For community development programs, ecotourism (R = 51.5) is more influential than product industry development in Taiwan, while in Indonesia, they were equally influential. CF implementation in Taiwan was more likely located in mountainous areas, while CFs were situated throughout Indonesia.

Conflict transformation and collaboration in developing social forestry in Flores, Indonesia

Social movements to realize forest tenure reforms have been ongoing since the 1970s, particularly through policies under the broad umbrella of social forestry. In Indonesia, social forestry programs are initiated by the government, communities, NGOs, academics, companies, and donors, and are based on specific socio-economic and ecological interests. Weak synergies, however between programmatic implementation and stakeholder interests, triggers various forest tenure conflicts. The research examines the complexity of these conflicts, namely focusing around the approaches to conflict transformation that can lead to collaboration in realizing forest sustainability that also support interests of people living in and around forests. I employed a qualitative approach by collecting data through in-depth interviews and participatory observations in Flores in 2017 and 2020. The results show that forest tenure conflicts have occurred since the 1970s due to state forest territorialization. Conflicts culminated in the determination of state forest area boundaries through the 1984 state program entitled the “consensus-based forest land use planning” initiative. Until 2008, efforts to resolve conflicts by offering the community access rights through community forestry programs initiated by the government were rejected by NGOs and the local community. NGOs facilitated communities to demand the return of state forest land as customary forest. This conflict presented the opportunity to facilitate multi-stakeholder forestry programs through a conflict transformation approach by building long-term stakeholder collaboration. Since 2010, the collaboration between stakeholders took place through the community forest program. This study shows the need for more direct attention to studying conflict resolution under an integrated and long-term approach to conflict transformation and collaboration. Pragmatically, this study shows the importance of integrated social forestry policies that synergize various schemes initiated by stakeholders to realize forest sustainability and support local community interests.

Community Forestry and Local Development A Study of Sukhani Community Forest User Group

Community forestry is small scale, village level forestry practice where decisions and actions are often made on a collective basis, and where the rural population participate in planning, establishment, management and harvesting of forest crops and receive a many or proportion of the socio- economic and ecological benefits from the forests. Conceptually community forestry can range from pure forest cropping on one extreme to combining tree and food crops agro forestry on the other. In the context of Nepal, according to forest survey, 2016, forest area had covered 44.74 of the total area of the country. This proves the popularly known proverb “Hariyo Ban Nepal Ko Dhan”. Forest alone contributes 10 percent of total GDP; livestock get 40 percent of total fodder from forest foliage. Fuel wood contributes about 76 percent of the total energy sources used in the country, which also comes from forest. Also, much of the agricultural system are directly or indirectly based on the forest. Community Forestry was introduced in Nepal in 1978. The community forest has been defined as the control, protection and management of the local communities known as user groups. It advocates strong community participation, bottom-up planning and sustainable use of forest resources. The main objective of the CF is to achieve the sustainable forest resources by converting accessible national forest into community forest into in stages. The CF approach has been highly successful in the protection of the forest in the hills of Nepal. The local user groups are responsible for the control, protection and management of the forest. CF advocates strong community participation, bottom-up planning and sustainable use of forest resources. Under this program, 2,312,545 hectares of forest land have been handed over to the community, up to 22,519 user groups, and 21,00,000 HHs were directly benefitted in mid-July, 2020. It shows that after emergence of community forestry program, local developmental activities have been increased.

Hubungan Antara Pelaksanaan Program Hutan Kemasyarakatan Dengan Kinerja Penyuluh Kehutanan Di Provinsi Lampung

Community forests are a tangible form of integration between forests as environmental buffers and providers of basic human needs, and the surrounding community as managers to benefit from forests. Community forest management is carried out by the community who must be given guidance by extension workers with a better role for community forest management. This study aims to determine the relationship between the implementation of the community forestry program and the performance of forestry extension workers. The research will be carried out at UPTD KPH Pematang Neba and UPTD KPH Batu Serob. Respondents for this research were forestry extension workers from the Lampung Provincial Forestry Service who were spread throughout the UPTD KPH, amounting to only 118 people. The research was conducted in August – October 2020. The method used in this study was a survey method. The relationship between the implementation of the HKm program and the performance of forestry instructors was analyzed using the Spearman rank test. The results showed that the relationship between the implementation of the HKm program and the performance of the forestry instructor was 0.556 with a significance value of 0.000, so it can be concluded that the implementation of the HKm program and the performance of the forestry instructor had a significant positive relationship.&#x0D; Keywords: Program Hutan Kemasyarakatan, Kinerja Penyuluh Kehutanan

Rural Residents’ Participation Intention in Community Forestry-Challenge and Prospect of Community Forestry in Sri Lanka

The contribution of local communities has become widely recognized as a better alternative in forest management than the traditional command-based control approach. However, several years later of implementation, most programs were failed due to a lack of community participation, imposing an uncertain future for community forestry. This paper examines rural Sri Lankans’ participation intention in community forestry (CF) program by using the Probit regression model. Randomly selected 300 individuals representing both CF members and non-CF members were interviewed for the study. The study results indicate that rural residents’ intention in future CF program negatively correlated with the participation status (CF membership) of individuals. Accordingly, CF members show less participation intention in future CF program than non-CF members. Socio-economic variables such as education level (p &lt; 0.01) and the occupation of head of the household (p &lt; 0.05) and total household income (p &lt; 0.01) have significant influences on individuals’ participation intention in CF. In addition, non-monetary benefits derived from CF and perception on the product regulation and conflict mitigation are also appeared to significantly and positively affect villagers’ intention. The findings also revealed the knowledge gap on the purpose of the CF program and CF policy design. Hence, require immediate attention to improve awareness. Moreover, failure to raise local people’s participation intention in CF may indicate inadequate or ineffective government policies. Therefore, the Department of Forest Conservation should take sound measures to ensure that community-based forest management policies are consistently implemented at different administrative levels across the country and its rightness should be evaluated strictly.