A review of forest policies, institutions, and changes in the resource condition in Nepal

Abstract

This paper reviews the evolution of forest policies and forestry institutions in Nepal and tracks the accompanying trends of change in the country’s forest cover over the last century. Our objective is to provide an essential foundation to the policy reform process that is underway in Nepal and many other Asian countries. The review shows that before 1957 the Nepalese government’s focus was on conversion of forestlands to farmlands, and extraction of timber for export. After the nationalisation of the forests in 1957 until 1976, policy-making efforts were oriented towards national control of forests through stringent laws and expansion of the forest bureaucracy. This approach failed as evidenced by widespread deforestation and forest degradation across the country during the 1960s through 1980s. Early efforts of the government and donor agencies to rectify the problem through reforestation and afforestation also largely failed, but these efforts paved the way for subsequent initiation of the participatory approach to forest management in the late 1970s. Since then, community-based forest management evolved continuously under the aegis of supportive forest policies and legislations. The present community forestry program has met with notable successes in some areas. However, the program has been confronted with some contentious issues in recent years including a policy debate over the suitability of forests in the southern lowlands (the terai) for community management and sharing of income obtained from community forests. These and some other issues surrounding the community forestry program are discussed and their implications for designing or improving future forest governance have been identified.

Drivers of reforestation in human-dominated forests

“…Yet, all communities are not equally effective (26). Whereas community forestry has been linked to large-scale reforestation in Nepal (20) and Mexico (17), the large-scale, forced implementation of collective forestry in China in the 1950s has not prevented the sharp decline in the quantity and quality of that country's forests (27).…”

“…Since the early 1970s, Nepal has proved a forerunner in implementing a variety of community-based policies of forest management (20). Conflicts arising from the Maoist insurgency have had serious adverse impacts on forest management over the past decade.…”

“…The rich social, ecological, physical, and cultural heterogeneity in the region makes it difficult, if not impossible, to generalize trends across the entire country and identify a single linear trajectory of land-cover change. In the middle hills, where the population densities are the highest, there has been little reduction in forest cover since the early to mid-20th century, although there has been considerable deterioration in the quality of forest habitat and in wildlife populations (20). Major losses in forest cover have occurred in recent decades, but in the lowlands of the Terai, not in the hills (37,43).…”

“…In the second category, community forests are managed by local communities organized into community forestry user groups. This program is now widespread in the Nepal middle hills and Terai plains and is commonly believed to have been successful in reversing much of the deforestation in the middle hills, although there has been wide variation in its implementation in different parts of the country and the program is not without its share of problems (20,37).…”

“…This small mountain country provides an excellent context in which to examine trajectories of forest change, with extensive evidence of forest clearing in some regions and large-scale regrowth in others (18,20). The range of biophysical and ecological contexts, diversity of tenure arrangements, and number of user groups provide us with sufficient variation to be able to examine a range of contexts.…”