Forest Management In Nepal Research Articles

Role of Community and User Attributes in Collective Action: Case Study of Community-Based Forest Management in Nepal

A growing literature on collective action focuses on exploring the conditions that might help or hinder groups to work collectively. In this paper, we focus on community-based forest management in the inner Terai region of Nepal and explore the role of community and user attributes such as group size, social heterogeneities, forest user’ perception on forests, and affiliation to the user group, in the collective action of managing community forests. Household surveys were carried out with 180 households across twelve community forest users’ groups. We first measured ethnic diversity, income inequality, landholding inequality, and user perception towards the use and management of community forests to understand their effect on the participation of forest users in the management of community forests. Our results show that among the studied variables, group size (number of forest users affiliated to the community forests) and perception of the management of their community forests are strong predictors of forest user participation in community forest management. Income inequality and ethnic diversity were found to have no significant association. Land inequality, however, was found to decrease participation in the management and use of community forests. These community and user attributes play a crucial role in the success of collective action and may vary from community to community. Hence they need to be duly considered by the practitioners prior to any community-based project interventions for stimulating successful collective action.

Glamour and gripes of community forestry: impact on income distribution

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Community Forest and Forest Management in Nepal

This Paper provides brief introduction to the Forest and Community Forest in Nepal and context and status of community forest in Nepal. Community forests in Nepal are built on the experience of other countries around the world, especially its neighbors in South Asia. In order to understand the context and particular designs and objectives of Nepal’s community forestry program, key literature on community forestry is summarized. Particular attention is paid to the evolution of community forestry in Nepal from first protecting local forests and forest products for subsistence needs, to an increased role in income generation and meeting national development goals, including poverty alleviation.

Operationalising the Ideas of Justice in Forest Governance: An Analysis of Community Forestry and REDD+ Processes in Nepal

The aim of this paper is to consider the ways in which ideas of justice are applied in the national context of policy design and practice of forest management in Nepal. Concerns about justice have become increasingly prominent in forest management objectives across a range of governance initiatives—from state-controlled forests to community forestry and REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) development. However, there remains a considerable gap between theoretical and public conceptions of justice as to its institutionalisation and practical operationalisation. With a detailed case study of Nepal’s community forestry and REDD+ processes, this paper analyses whether and how the ideas of justice are applied in forest governance. In particular, it assesses justice implications of policy processes and outcomes, including the Forest Act (1993), Forestry Sector Strategy (2014), Forest Policy (2015), and REDD+ Strategy (First Draft, 2015) and discusses the opportunities and challenges of addressing issues of justice and forest peoples’ rights through community forestry and REDD+ in Nepal. In so doing, this paper also draws some useful insights on how to link twin agendas of justice and sustainability in forest management.

Edible forest? Rethinking Nepal's forest governance in the era of food insecurity

SUMMARY The problem of food insecurity is growing, triggering global debates on the gap in understanding alternative ways of accessing foods, including those from forestlands. This paper aims to address this gap by demonstrating a variety of ways in which forests carry the potential to contribute to food security, drawing on the case study of community based forest management in Nepal. It shows that forests not only complement farms in providing foods in critical periods, but also provide an important platform for collective actions, which have the potential to enhance smallholders' entitlement to food. The paper, then, identifies barriers in the current policy framework to capitalize on the potential of forests to enhance food security. An important implication of this finding is that there is an urgent need to reframe forest governance to incorporate food security concerns, without necessarily compromising forests' role in biodiversity conservation.

Is the contribution of community forest users financially efficient? A household level benefit-cost analysis of community forest management in Nepal

Community forestry in Nepal is considered an exemplary forest management regime. However, the economics behind managing a community forest is not fully studied. This study examines whether the benefits generated from community forest management justify the contributions of forest users. The study is based on a survey of community forest users in Chitwan, Nepal. A household level benefit-cost analysis was performed to quantify and compare the costs and benefits from community forest management. Only direct benefits were included in the analysis. The study shows that older forest user groups derive more benefits to households compared to more recently established ones. The extent of timber harvesting also substantially influences the size of the household benefits. In addition, redistribution of benefits at the household level, in terms of income generating activities and payment for involvement in forest management activities, also enhances household benefits. Sensitivity analysis suggests that the current practice of community forest management enhances the welfare of rural households in this subsistence community. However, this finding is sensitive to assumptions regarding the opportunity cost of time. The study also found that the household costs of community forest management depend upon two factors – the area of community forest and the size of the forest area relative to the number of households.

Evaluating the Impacts of Forest Management Policies and Community-Level Institutions in the Buffer Zone of Chitwan National Park, Nepal

A Master Plan for Nepal’s Forestry Sector (MPFS), enacted in 1989, and subsequent legislation laid the foundation for modern community-based forest management in Nepal. In 2014, the MPFS reached the end of its 25-yr lifespan, after successfully ushering in significant institutional changes that fundamentally transformed the management of Nepal’s forests, mostly through devolving management and benefits from the national level to local communities. Here, we use the 25-yr anniversary of the MPFS to explore forest cover trends in the buffer zone surrounding Chitwan National Park (CNP). Landsat imagery was used for the years 1989, 2005, and 2013 to compute a normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) to analyze trends in forest cover for 36 buffer zone village development committees (VDCs). The analysis, covering approximately 1,267 km2, found that since the MPFS was enacted, there was first a continued decrease in forest cover, followed by a significant recovery. These data offer insight into the success of modern community-based forest management policies and supporting institutions, and provide a model for other efforts to conserve forest resources in Nepal and elsewhere.

The relative distribution: An alternative approach to evaluate the impact of community level forestry organisations on households

Community forest management in Nepal has shifted from protection to distribution due to a failure of community forestry to have a significant impact on the level of poverty. The failure to have a positive impact on poverty is often attributed to governance issues, which in Nepal are typically associated with differences in the social status of those holding positions of decision-making power and those who have the most need. Using a modified elite theory that characterises decision-making in terms of relative wealth and caste of decision-makers, the study looks at the effect of community structure on governance and on distribution of forest products. The results show that when the poor and disadvantaged households participate in decision-making, either as members of the executive committee or in public assemblies, the relative distribution of firewood, timber and fodder from community forests to poor and disadvantaged households increases. The results provide empirical evidence of the commonly held belief that participation of poor and disadvantaged households in decision-making is a key element of poverty reduction through community management of resources. Based on these results, efforts to increase participation of poor and disadvantaged households in decision-making should be a critical part of planning community forest governance.

Production efficiency of community forest management in Nepal

Nepal's forests have been transferred to community management with the twin objectives of supplying forest products and addressing local environmental problems. Community forests provide a range of benefits, from direct forest products such as timber and non-provisioning ecosystem services such as soil protection. There is a need to understand the extent to which environmental and community benefits are joint products or substitutes. Stochastic frontier production analysis (SFPA) was used to study the production relationship between environmental and community benefits and production efficiency analysis to study the extent to which communities were able to achieve maximum benefits. SFPA indicated that the magnitude of direct forest product benefits was influenced by various socioeconomic and forest related factors such as distance to the government office, community forest size, and group heterogeneity negatively affect community forest products benefits. On the other hand, links to the market, forest products dependency, and the number of households in the community augment benefits from community forests. In addition, forest product benefits and environmental benefits were complementary to each other. Production efficiency analysis showed that communities were not producing forest products efficiently. Factors such as social capital contributed positively to production efficiency, whereas caste heterogeneity in the executive committees of community forest user groups was negatively associated with efficiency. These findings can contribute to better implementation of community forestry programmes in Nepal, improving the welfare of communities by increasing direct forest product benefits without environmental harm.

Incentives for community participation in the governance and management of common property resources: the case of community forest management in Nepal

Devolution of resource management access rights, from the state to local communities, has been an important policy tool in Nepal over the last two decades. One of the major goals of this policy is to increase the participation of local users in decision-making and for them to gain benefits from the forests. However, a lack of meaningful participation amongst users in resource governance has resulted in a failure to include socially marginalised groups in community decision-making. The main objective of this research is to explore what incentives are most likely to enhance the effective participation of local users in the governance and management of common property resources. In this study of community forestry management regimes in Nepal, access to resources and benefits, and enforcement of legal property rights are identified as the key influential incentives that determine the effective participation of users in resource governance. This study proposes proportional allocation of the most productive part of a community forest to a sub-group (formed within a user group) of the poor and disadvantaged members, and the transference and enforcement of legal property rights to this sub-group over the allocated forest, in order to protect their access rights to resources and to secure their greater participation in resource governance.

The Local Environmental, Economic and Social Tragedies of International Interventions on Community Based Forest Management for Global Environmental Conservation: A Critical Evaluation

This study reviewed the policies and outcomes of international support for forest management in Nepal and answered whether international support on forest management in developing countries resulted in positive socioeconomic and environmental outcomes at local communities. The evaluation is based on the socio-ecological theory and synergies-tradeoff model of forestry ecosystems goods and services. The study shows that the international interventions influenced national policies and community forestry practices, which contributed to the remarkable increase of forest stock. The new forestry institutions increased timber product supplies to urban users and contributed to offsetting of greenhouse gas emission of affluent societies in overseas. However, the intervention spoiled centuries of old forestry practices, which had contributed to the evolvement of socio-ecological condition, sustained local economy and environment systems. The new forestry institutions and practices locked local opportunities of multipurpose uses of forest, worsened water yield and local knowledge, and hampered local economic activities. Consequently they affected habitat diversities for forest based species, and forest resource supplies for sustaining agrobiodiversities and local food security. In reality the interventions increased benefit to distant users (urban users in the country and affluent societies in overseas) and further marginalized local communities and particularly socially disadvantaged people. The paper shows that the international forestry policies and supports are technically wrong or poorly based on science which is against their promise of providing better technical supports and benefiting local communities in developing countries. It argues that the interventions created many complexities in forestry institutions and practices which require too costly endeavor to change and address the local socioeconomic and environmental problems. The paper has explained the root cause of the international policy problem on many schools of thought.

Comparing a top-down and bottom-up approach in the identification of criteria and indicators for sustainable community forest management in Nepal

Policy makers, scientists and civil society are involved in the development of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management (SFM), reflecting the growing worldwide demand for addressing sustainable development and environmental governance management goals. Such frameworks have been largely derived from expert-led or community-based approaches. This article details the identification process of criteria and indicators (C & I) based on the international principles of SFM through the analysis of a hybrid approach that uses both a top-down (TD) and a bottom-up (BU) approach. The aim of this article is to discuss how the two approaches have worked to incorporate the different views, opinions and experiences of experts and stakeholders. National-level C & I are then compared with those at the local level, making specific reference to sustainable community forest (CF) management. For the TD approach, a Delphi survey was conducted where 121 experts shared their knowledge, experience and judgements in assessing a set of 72 indicators with regard to the applicability, practicality and importance of national, regional and CF management in Nepal. For the BU approach, C & I for CF management were developed with the direct involvement of various stakeholders. It was shown that such a hybrid approach is feasible from a methodological point of view, but a framework is needed by the government to more fully utilize the opportunities of the C & I development process in the SFM context. The results of this study also help to bridge the gap between the ad hoc planning of decision makers and the requirement for a holistic management system, which includes participatory processes. Based on the conclusions of this study, general recommendations for the methodological design of C & I development in similar studies are given.

The Carbon Sequestration Potential of Community-based Forest Management in Nepal

The Carbon Sequestration Potential of Community-based Forest Management in Nepal

Maoist Conflict, Community Forestry and Livelihoods: Pro-poor Innovations in Forest Management in Nepal

Violent conflicts are quite often perceived as a destructive and negative phenomenon, and there is little understanding of how they also offer opportunities for a positive change in the society. In particular, little is understood about how violent conflicts and development processes interact and create positive changes in local institutions and practices. This article focuses on such interactions observed amongst the Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) in the Koshi Hills of Nepal, as the Livelihoods and Forestry Programme (LFP) worked through the conflict period. It demonstrates that the Maoist conflict contributed in several ways to enhance the pro-poor outcomes of development actions. We show that the conflict helped empower the marginalised groups, improve their access to community resources, and bring about important changes within the local institutions and practices, contributing to equitable resource management. We suggest that there are positive sides of a violent conflict, where development interventions need to focus on. We also argue that development brings about equitable outcomes if it is complemented with local level advocacy in favour of the poor and marginalised groups. Full text is available at the ForestAction websiteDOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jfl.v8i2.2311 Journal of Forest and Livelihood 8(2) February 2009 pp.93-100

Local vs official criteria and indicators for evaluating community forest management

Summary Processes to develop criteria and indicators (C and I) for sustainable forest management are often expert driven. Although the long-term objective of the Nepalese forest policy is sustainable forest management, no national level C and I specifi cally for this have been developed. However, the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation awards an annual prize to successful community forest user groups (CFUGs) based on evaluation according to 10 criteria. This study explored local C and I for successful forest management in Nepal through six meetings with CFUG members. A total of 14 local criteria and 52 indicators for awarding a prize to successful CFUGs were identifi ed, and comparison with offi cial C and I was undertaken. Most conspicuously, local C and I focus more on environmental and governance-related aspects than the offi cial list, and the offi cial list leaves much to the discretion of the evaluator. The study concludes that development of a national level C and I for sustainable forest management could benefi t from involvement of local forest users.

Using Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Participatory Mapping of Community Forest in NEPAL

AbstractCommunity forestry is a successful development programme of His Majesty's Government (HMG), in the sector of forest management in Nepal. The process of community forestry comprises the assessment of forest resources and drawing‐up of a plan of action for the management of forests. Forest boundary surveying is a mandatory activity in the formal handing over of the forest to the people or Forest User groups (FUG) as they are known in practice. The spatial issues in mapping are more related to the boundary of the forest, location of the forest itself, the geographic characteristics of the forest i.e. slope, aspect, altitude and area covered by particular forest resources i.e. the forest type, Non Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) and information that could be useful in preparing a better management and implementation plan of the forest. The use of Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PGIS) in the field of community forest management combines the collection of quantitative and qualitative information in a way that is beneficial for the FUG (Jordan, 2000) i.e. mapping the boundary of the forest, block division of the forest area and preparing a multiple resource map. The quantitative spatial components can be collected and managed for sustainable forest management i.e. information on the length of forest boundary, resource distribution, stocking and incidence patterns. Without peoples’ participation in the application of GIS and GPS in mapping the forest, the accuracy cannot always be assured on the one hand, while on the other, the information cannot be properly utilized as the ultimate users of the community forest maps are the local communities themselves. Prior to handing over of the forest areas to the FUGs, transect walks are carried‐out in the relevant areas and features of interest are mapped using GPSs. The data is analysed in a GIS environment and maps i.e. Forest Boundaries, delineating NTFP species as well as the location of poor Households are produced. Assessment of products by plots of the relevant species, are also carried‐out. Thus the participatory GIS, incorporates both indigenous knowledge on spatial aspects of community forest management, as well as social, land cover, and cultural features.

Institutions and collective action: Does heterogeneity matter in community-based resource management?

This article examines the relationship between local level heterogeneity and the likelihood of successful collective action in community-based forest management in Nepal. Economic and social heterogeneity are discussed and their effects on local level collective action considered. The study develops simple measures of inequality for key variables, and shows that there is no clear-cut impact of group heterogeneity on collective action. Forest user groups can create institutions for resource management according to their local context in order to avoid management problems created by inequalities among resource users. Perhaps the most important result is that the effects of heterogeneity can be highly variable, and the recommendation is that systems of governance need to be flexible to allow adaptation of management regimes to local conditions.

Local benefits from community forests in the middle hills of Nepal

Community forestry has been in existence for about 20 years in Nepal, but there are few observations on changes in resource use since its inception. This study aims to investigate how farmers affected by community forestry have adapted to its introduction and whether their livelihood options have changed in response to changes in forest accessibility and forest product availability. A total of 309 households were interviewed in eight forest user groups in the middle hills of Nepal and results on reported changes in forest product collection and livestock numbers analysed. Reported forest product collection has increased since the introduction of community forestry, while livestock numbers have decreased. The main findings of the study are that, despite controlled access to the forest, collection rates have increased slightly in the majority of income groups and households. The number of trees on private land has increased, while the size of livestock herds has decreased. As long as the farmers can continue to adapt without adversely affecting their livelihoods they will support this forestry management system leading to an increased chance of the long term success of common property forest management in Nepal.

High value forests, hidden economies and elite capture: Evidence from forest user groups in Nepal's Terai

This paper argues that the policy on decentralised forest management in Nepal, informed by experiences from the Middle Hills, overlooks the complexity and conflictual potential of establishing effective and equitable user groups in the Terai. Our case study evidence from West-Central Terai suggests that the combination of high forest value and weak institutional control mechanisms create opportunities for local elites to siphon off substantial shares of the benefits generated by valuable local forests. The rents created by autonomous FUG policies give rise to stark distributional biases, a scramble for control and institutional instability. We estimate the extent of elite capture and argue that institutional reform needs are intimately linked to controlling what we call the hidden economy of forest user groups.

Biodiversity conservation: Officials' perceptions and discord with community forest management in Nepal

Two topics receiving much attention in design of forest policy and management in Nepal are conservation of biodiversity and participation of forest-local people. Government officials, forest users and development workers are all involved in shaping policy for the management of forest for biodiversity and other values. It is therefore crucial to understand the different viewpoints about biodiversity among these stakeholders. This paper is derived from a broad case study on the views of various stakeholders in community forestry in Nepal, but is focused on understanding the views of policy-level government officials in regards to biodiversity conservation. Using a grounded theory approach, qualitative data were collected on two field visits in 2002–2003 to the study area. The results of interviews with officials indicate diverse perspectives in interpreting biodiversity conservation. These include perceptions of forest users' understanding about diversity, and strong beliefs about definition of biodiversity and about dependence of users on forest for their livelihood. Implications of the results include an obvious need for better understanding by staff at various levels of government and other agencies involved in community forestry, of the different concepts and views held about biodiversity conservation. A broader understanding among officials of biodiversity and deeper knowledge of other's views on biodiversity conservation could help in designing and implementing policies and programs in the context of community forest management. Key words: views, perceptions, understanding, community, forestry, users, government officials, policy, qualitative method