Must every state be a nation and every nation a state? Or should we look instead to the example of countries such as India, where one state holds together a congeries of “national” groups and cultures in a single and wisely conceived federal republic?

Due to natural phenomena and various anthropogenic activities, rapid land-use/land-cover (LULC) is happening in the earth. The aim of this study was to evaluate and understand LULC including mapping of tree outside the forest (TOF) coverage in Terai region of Nepal over the period 1990 -2016. Supervised classification-maximum likelihood algorithm in Arc map software was used for detecting LULC dynamics by using multispectral satellite data obtained from Landsat 5, Global Land Survey Thematic mapper (TM) and Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS. The study site was classified into four major LULC classes i.e. forest, sand, water bodies and others land. There was both increased and decreased of different LULC classes between1990-2016. Except forest, water, sand and others land cover were increased over twenty-six years between 1990-2016 in the study site. However, the rate of change in forest cover was lowered in the year 2000-2016. Increasing population and inward migration are the main reason behind the decreasing the forest coverage in the study site. However, the health of vegetation was improved between 2000 and 2016 compared to 1990 and 2000 due to contribution of TOF. Overall, anthropogenic activities play vital role in managing natural resources.

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Trees Outside Forests (TOF) is a reliable source of income for farmers in rural area but study regarding this has not been explored in depth yet. Therefore, this study was objectively conducted to assess the contribution of income from TOF products in annual income of rural household. Dhangadimai Municipality of Siraha district, Nepal was selected as study site. Altogether, 300 household surveys and 20 Focus Group Discussions (FGD) were conducted to find the income sources and their contribution including TOF. The descriptive analysis and unitary method were applied to analyze the collected data.