Applications of single-tree selection guideline following a DBq approach on Nepal’s community forests

Abstract

There is growing interest by forest users, government forest officers and policy makers on maximising forest goods and livelihood provisions from community forestry in a sustainable manner. However, the way several mature community forests are currently managed based on selection, e.g. negative thinning and crown thinning, is questionable as it results to decline in forest stock, timber quality and regeneration. To assist forest users in managing their community forests, an action research was implemented in Kavre and Lamjung to manage planted Pine (Pinus spp.) and naturally regenerated Sal (Shorea robusta) through selection system. This paper describes the q-factor and its relevance for sustainable community forest management in Nepal. The simple guideline for selection system introduced to 30 community forest users groups in six sites are presented for wider adoption and policy recommendation.Banko JanakariA Journal of Forestry Information for NepalSpecial Issue No. 4, 2018, Page: 104-112

Scientific Forest Management Practice in Nepal: Critical Reflections from Stakeholders’ Perspectives

“…Since one-third of the country's forest area is being managed under community-based forest management regimes [18], any forest management interventions that include these regimes need to satisfy the stakeholders involved. However, the limited number of studies carried out after the promulgation of SciFM are concentrated on either highlighting the positive aspects of site-specific timber production and economic returns [32,33] or on criticising the approach itself in reference to the governance mechanism [28,29]. There is a paucity of knowledge on the perspectives of wider stakeholders and the reasons behind their inactive participation in SciFM implementation procedures.…”

Lessons from Managing for the Extremes: A Case for Decentralized, Adaptive, Multipurpose Forest Management within an Ecological Framework

“…Meanwhile, researchers and managers completely overlooked the consequences of repeatedly and pervasively removing dead and defective trees, despite their important role in the ecological functioning of native forests, and in silvicultural and conservation planning (see Appendix A for details) [94][95][96][97]. In the occasional harvests of mature well-formed trees, technicians either arbitrarily (ad hoc) chose few trees for harvesting [98] or selectively logged out some of the most merchantable trees [59,85,93,99]. Both of these low-intensity operations opened up small poorly-planned canopy gaps in the forest, which at first stimulated a range of plants to germinate and resprout [100] but eventually excluded the regeneration of shade-intolerant and drought-competitive species which require more light to grow after establishment [101] (see Appendix B for details).…”

Damage Cost/Value Clustering in Timber Harvesting Decision Making for Sustainable Forest Management

“…Later, arrows are painted on trees to indicate the direction of felling to avoid damaging other valuable trees. Then, the system calculates the damage volume of residual trees [5], [6]. However, this event only takes place 10% of the pre-felling inventory as sampling for the rest of the felling area [7].…”