Forest product use at an upper elevation village in Nepal

Abstract

/ This paper describes forest product use at Chimkhola, an upper elevation village of west central Nepal. Villagers have large herds of livestock that they use to fertilize agricultural fields by holding the animals on cropland for one to several weeks prior to planting. Herds are moved sequentially from one group of fields to another until all are planted, and then families take animals into the forests. Herders, therefore, live in temporary shelters away from the homestead throughout the year, and for much of the year feed their livestock fodder cut from forest trees. By combining repeated interviews of sample households, one-time interviews with a large sample of village families, and direct measurements of forest products being used, I found that livestock maintenance consumes 74% of the hand-harvested wild biomass: 26.4% for green fodder, 32.3% for fuelwood at the herder's hut, and 13.8% for construction of the herder's hut. Fuelwood burned at the homestead is the next largest consumer, 17.6%. Villagers also use small amounts of forest materials for house construction, charcoal, agricultural implements, and bamboo for baskets and mats. The large amounts used by herders and livestock at Chimkhola mean that wild vegetation use there far exceeds the measurements made by previous reliable studies at other communities. This system of forest use is, however, degrading Chimkhola's forests and gradually converting them to shrublands.Scientific understanding of deforestation and environmental degradation in the Himalayas has experienced considerable change over the last 20 years. Eckholm's (1975Eckholm's ( , 1976) identification of Himalayan deforestation as a major world environmental problem seemed so intuitively obvious that it was widely accepted. However, as researchers examined more closely the causes, processes, and results of deforestation and as development projects established programs to reduce environmental degradation, it became clear that the problems were much more complicated than had been initially thought (Thompson and Warburton 1985). By the early 1980s, however, a number of scholars had begun the detailed research that has led to a growing consensus about the causes (Mahat and others 1986a,b, Ives and Messerli 1989, Metz 1991), processes (Levenson 1979, Fox 1983, 1984, Wiart 1983, Bajracharaya 1983, WyattSmith 1983, Campbell and Bhattarai 1984, Nield 1985, Mahat and others 1987a,b, Dobremez 1986, Metz 1989a, 1990b, and likely effects (Carson 1985, Byers 1987, Ramsey 1986, Hamilton 1987, Bruijnzeel and Bremer 1989 of forest conversion and degradation. This paper is a contribution to that process. Spe-KEY WORDS: Forest product use; Himalaya; Fuelwood; Agropastoral system; Nepal cifically, it describes in detail the types and amounts of forest products that a community in west central Nepal is using. In addition to describing results, it explains the methodology by which the data were collected. Methodology is important because earlier studies estimating per capita fuelwood consumption vari...

Effects of New Roads on Environmental Resource Use in the Central Himalaya

“…Our findings confirm the importance of environmental income to rural households in the Western Himalayan region of Nepal, matching that of similar studies [11,49]. Environmental income mainly originated from the collection of environmental products consumed in households (subsistence).…”

Environmental income and rural livelihoods: a global comparative analysis

“…Subsistence fuel wood consumption is highest in areas with high forest cover, fuel wood access, lack of alternative energy sources, cold climatic seasons, use of open fires, and culturally determined uses of fuel wood, e.g., for religious celebrations. In such locations, for example, in the Himalayas (Metz, 1994) or Northern China (Démurger & Fournier, 2011) We assessed the overall representativeness of the PEN study sites at two scales. We first compared the regions from which cases were selected using administrative jurisdictions equivalent to the "province" level (Dewi, Belcher, & Puntodewo, 2011).…”

Evaluating Sustainability of Symplocos ramosissima Harvest for Herder Huts

“…Chimkhola has a summer monsoonal climate, with a mean annual precipitation of 2700 mm and mean monthly temperatures ranging from 6°C in January to 29°C in June (Metz 1989). Metz (1989Metz ( , 1990Metz ( , 1994 found that 84% of Chimkhola's 285 families engaged in the goTh system of resource use. The average goTh hut was 3.5 m × 7.0 m, with an additional narrow fenced area attached to the front (see Figure 1).…”