Forests for Food Security and Livelihood Sustainability: Policy Problems and Opportunities for Small Farmers in Nepal

Dhakal, Bhubaneswor; Bigsby, Hugh R.; Cullen, Ross

doi:10.1080/10440046.2011.530903

Cited by 27 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…The unsafe lands were managed as a common property and used together in forest and pasture production to meet the broader needs of communities and environments. The communities used multiple products and services of the common property to complement private resources and sustain livelihoods (Dhakal et al, 2011;Hobley, 1996). Products and services derived from the joint management complement farmland resources and contribute to sustaining the livelihoods of mountain people with small size of landholdings.…”

Section: The Importance Of Multipurpose Management Of Forests and Evomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Poor rural houses require forest products to complement their private resource and so sustain their livelihood because of possessing insufficient private land resources and a poor level of livelihood assets (Dhakal et al, 2011). Non-timber forest products are the main inputs to leverage their farm economic activities and the means to utilize their spare work time for income generation.…”

Section: The Importance Of Multipurpose Management Of Forests and Evomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It was planned, funded and practiced for "reducing and controlling livestock numbers" of mountain farmers (MPFS, 1988 p. 148) even though livestock farming was the engine and inspiration to sustain farming systems and maintain economic and environmental vitality in the mountain region (Hausler, 1993). The plan focused forest management to increase timber and firewood supplies to urban users and industries and gave little value to increased non-timber forest products to meet local community demands (Dhakal, 2011;MPFS, 1988). The agencies advised specially to introduce industrial model of forest management in the name of providing technical support of international experts for improve management of the community based forests.…”

Section: History and Problems Of External Intervention On Mountain Fomentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Local Environmental, Economic and Social Tragedies of International Interventions on Community Based Forest Management for Global Environmental Conservation: A Critical Evaluation

Dhakal¹

2014

OJF

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This study reviewed the policies and outcomes of international support for forest management in Nepal and answered whether international support on forest management in developing countries resulted in positive socioeconomic and environmental outcomes at local communities. The evaluation is based on the socio-ecological theory and synergies-tradeoff model of forestry ecosystems goods and services. The study shows that the international interventions influenced national policies and community forestry practices, which contributed to the remarkable increase of forest stock. The new forestry institutions increased timber product supplies to urban users and contributed to offsetting of greenhouse gas emission of affluent societies in overseas. However, the intervention spoiled centuries of old forestry practices, which had contributed to the evolvement of socio-ecological condition, sustained local economy and environment systems. The new forestry institutions and practices locked local opportunities of multipurpose uses of forest, worsened water yield and local knowledge, and hampered local economic activities. Consequently they affected habitat diversities for forest based species, and forest resource supplies for sustaining agrobiodiversities and local food security. In reality the interventions increased benefit to distant users (urban users in the country and affluent societies in overseas) and further marginalized local communities and particularly socially disadvantaged people. The paper shows that the international forestry policies and supports are technically wrong or poorly based on science which is against their promise of providing better technical supports and benefiting local communities in developing countries. It argues that the interventions created many complexities in forestry institutions and practices which require too costly endeavor to change and address the local socioeconomic and environmental problems. The paper has explained the root cause of the international policy problem on many schools of thought.

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Section: The Importance Of Multipurpose Management Of Forests and Evomentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Importance Of Multipurpose Management Of Forests and Evomentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: History and Problems Of External Intervention On Mountain Fomentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Local Environmental, Economic and Social Tragedies of International Interventions on Community Based Forest Management for Global Environmental Conservation: A Critical Evaluation

Dhakal¹

2014

OJF

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“…For example, forests in Nepal, which occupy 40 percent of the land area, have traditionally supplied inputs such as firewood, fodder/pasture, timber, charcoal and other non-wood products that are useful for rural households. However, recent Nepalese government policies, designed to protect forests, have reduced rural communities' access to local forest products and further marginalized poor people (Dhakal et al, 2011;Thoms, 2008;Shrestha and McManus, 2007;Maskey et al, 2006;Hjortso et al, 2006). (Kumar, 2002;Agrawal, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socioeconomic Impacts of Public Forest Policies on Heterogeneous Agricultural Households

Dhakal

Bigsby

Cullen

2012

Environ Resource Econ

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Nepal has a long history of returning public forests to local people as part of its community forestry programme. In principle the community forestry programme is designed to address both environmental quality and poverty alleviation. However, concern has been expressed that forest policies emphasise environmental conservation, and that this has a detrimental impact on the use of community forests in rural Nepal where households require access to public forest products to sustain livelihoods. To study the effect of government policies on forest use, an economic model of a typical small community of economically heterogeneous households in Nepal was developed. The model incorporates a link between private agriculture and public forest resources, and uses this link to assess the socioeconomic impacts of forest policies on the use of public forests. Socioeconomic impacts were measured in terms of household income, employment and income inequality. The results show that some forest policies have a negative economic impact, and the impacts are more serious than those reported by other studies. This study shows that existing forest policies reduce household income and employment, and widen income inequalities within communities, compared to alternative policies. Certain forest policies even constrain the poorest households' ability to meet survival needs. The findings indicate that the socioeconomic impacts of public forest policies may be underestimated in developing countries unless household economic heterogeneity and forestry's contribution to production are accounted for. The study also demonstrates that alternative policies for managing common property resources would reduce income inequalities in rural Nepalese communities and lift incomes and employment to a level where even the poorest households could meet their basic needs.

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“…In addition, individual household foregone revenues from an alternative land use or labor activity might be different to the average foregone economic rent from other land-use options; the trade-offs between these two perspectives of opportunity costs should be considered in the valuation and design of a BSM. Lessons learned from Nepal have shown that poor members who used to rely heavily on forest are compelled to reduce collection of forest products, especially fodder, fuelwood and grazing although well-off members can compensate for loss of these products from their private land (Dhakal et al 2011). Thus the cost of foregone use is higher for the poorest and leads to justification for inclusion of higher weighting for the poor and vulnerable in their BS scheme.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Thinking about REDD+ benefit sharing mechanism (BSM): Lessons from community forestry (CF) in Nepal and Indonesia

Nawir¹,

Paudel²,

Wong³

et al. 2015

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•Benefit sharing (BS) approaches in community forestry (CF) are differentiated into: rights allocation-based, input-based and performance-based, from initiation to implementation and each approach has specific and complementary roles in ensuring effectiveness, efficiency and equity of benefit sharing mechanisms (BSMs). •Rights allocation-based BSMs provide a more sustainable incentive than payment-based incentives for maintaining involvement in CF under conditions of inadequate financing. Maintaining the sustainability of payment-based incentives is problematic because of the need to price incentives correctly relative to transaction and opportunity costs. The need to compensate for opportunity costs is less relevant under rights-based BSMs. •The type of rights matters. Clear, comprehensive and secure tenure rights that include rights to access, withdraw, manage and exclude, induces strong collective action. •Effectiveness and efficiency of BSMs can be enhanced by structuring benefits as incentives to change behavior, particularly when compared to some input-based incentives that are not directly linked to halting of deforestation and degradation. • Equity in BSM can be enhanced if revenues are allocated for development activities such as community infrastructure and facilities and social services and by explicitly weighting for the poor, women and marginalized groups. •Though there can be equity trade-offs compared to funding individual payments, our case studies suggest a preference for development activities, especially if such payments are not that significant compared to current shared benefits. •Transaction costs and the failure to compensate for these act as a barrier to smallholders and the poor • For equity and long-term commitment, opportunity costs are important in deciding how benefits are shared, particularly if land-use competition is high. There are different types of opportunity costs (i.e. the opportunity costs of revenues from behavior change of individual household versus the rent of alternative land uses in the area included in a REDD+ scheme) and these differences should be considered in the design.

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Forests for Food Security and Livelihood Sustainability: Policy Problems and Opportunities for Small Farmers in Nepal

Cited by 27 publications

References 34 publications

The Local Environmental, Economic and Social Tragedies of International Interventions on Community Based Forest Management for Global Environmental Conservation: A Critical Evaluation

The Local Environmental, Economic and Social Tragedies of International Interventions on Community Based Forest Management for Global Environmental Conservation: A Critical Evaluation

Socioeconomic Impacts of Public Forest Policies on Heterogeneous Agricultural Households

Thinking about REDD+ benefit sharing mechanism (BSM): Lessons from community forestry (CF) in Nepal and Indonesia

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