This paper demonstrates that a transition from passive to active management of community forest is possible by adopting joint learning processes among local forest user groups, forest officials and local non-governmental service providers. Such an approach has the potential to address several issues that underlie and characterise passive management namely: underutilisation of forest, protection oriented forest management, overstocked forest (dense) vis-a-vis deficit in supply of forest products, and poorly designed silvicultural practices. Passive management is attributed mainly to the poor planning of forest management, inadequate and restrictive forest inventory guidelines and limited recognition of the forest management knowledge of locally trained resource persons. We present evidence of the processes and outcomes of active management being promoted by Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) in Nepal. The transition to active forest management is demonstrated through an assessment of revisions made in the community forest Operational Plans (OP). Key revisions identified include, among others: defining objectives of forest management considering people's choices and locality factors, site-specific forest management treatments, development of product utilisation plans, provisions for Non-timber Forest Products (NTFPs) management and conservation of biodiversity and water resources.

Government of Nepal has adopted different models like community forestry, leasehold forestry, collaborative forestry, buffer zone community forestry and public land agroforestry for management of forest resources. Poor focused leasehold forestry is only the approach adopted since early 1990 that has two major objectives: livelihood improvement and environmental conservation. Forest user groups of 5–15 households (HHs) are provided with part of national forests for a period of initial lease of 40 years. Leased forests are managed mainly with forestry crops, forage and non-timber forest products (NTFPs) to meet the dual objectives. Past studies and researches have indicated that leasehold forests are better than the hand over time however they are inadequate in dealing with silvicultural aspects in leasehold forestry (LF). This research paper has highlighted the significance of silvicultural aspects of leasehold forestry for overall socio-economic benefits to the poor and vulnerable forest users. Review of the existing policy and legal documents, studies and progress reports of the leasehold forestry projects implemented during the last two decades, consultation with leasehold forest user groups from five districts (Tehrathum, Makawanpur, Tanahun, Pyuthan and Doti) formed the main source of data for this article. Further, author’s own experiences in the sector were taken as supporting reliable information for the study. The study found that silvicultural practices, except plantations and weeding, were not adopted in leasehold forest but there was great potential for such practices to maximize the socio-economic benefits. Proper use of silvicultural practices might have increased contribution to currently realized benefits like (i) increased income of members i.e. poorest families (having less than 3 months secured foods) were reduced over years, (ii) group members had increased access to different networks and cooperatives, (iii) participation of women, poor and indigenous people increased in the decision-making process, and (iv) forest coverage was increased with respect to the hand over time. Some issues on silviculture aspects included proper guidelines for silvicultural methods, capacity of staff and leasehold forest user group members, smaller sizes of leasehold forests, and promotion of appropriate species. Banko JanakariA Journal of Forestry Information for Nepal Special Issue No. 4, 2018, Page: 113-119

This study of Genetic Differentiation among Himalayan & local Mahseer concerns with a conservation plan is a fundamental part of the hydro projects still in the pipeline. In-situ conservation and gene banking also serve as the best medium for the same. Despite conservation programs, re-examination and revision of these conservation areas to update the number and lists of endangered status are mandatory. Fish samples collected from 8 different waterbodies {Chambal River, Rana Pratap Sagar Dam, Bassi Dam, Kali Sindh River, Parwan River, Badi Lake, Daya Dam, and Madar Tank} representing two major drainage systems (the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea) of India. For the cytochrome oxidase subunit I, a total of 32 sequences was generated, whereas, for the ATPase 6 gene, a total of 66 sequences were generated. Two mitochondrial regions COI and ATPase6 were amplified using the set (Forward & Reverse primer set) of published primers (COI-Fish F-1/Fish R-1. BOLD-IDS was used to test the efficiency of DNA barcoding as a species identification tool using a blind sampling test, the sample selected & sequenced were known only to the submitting individual. Mismatch distributions to evaluate the hypothesis of recent population growth with 99,999 permutations as implemented in ARLEQUIN 3.0.1 was used. This distribution is unimodal in populations that have passed through a recent demographic expansion and are multimodal in stable populations. A DNA sequence of Himalayan Mahseer (Tor tor) was downloaded from NCBI Gene Bank and the sequences generated in the present study were compared (Using MEGA7 Software) with the downloaded sequence. It's derived that the stocks of Rajasthan Mahseer are quite distinct from the Himalayan stocks. The minimum genetic (116.06) distance was noticed for both Daya dam and Madar Tank and the highest (125.35) was for Bassi Dam. The evolutionary history was inferred using the Minimum Evolution method. The optimal tree with the sum of branch length 123.79668059. The significantly higher genetic distance between Rajasthan and Himalayan stocks could be due to geographic location and mainly isolated aquatic resources. Similar findings have also been reported by earlier workers.