The impacts of a community forestry program on forest conditions, management intensity and revenue generation in the Dang district of Nepal

Poudel, Narayan Raj; Fuwa, Nobuhiko; Otsuka, Keijiro

doi:10.1017/s1355770x14000473

Cited by 19 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Nepal is the first country devolving forest management from the authorities to local communities for conserving forest resources, which has attracted worldwide attention [5]. Over four decades, community forest user groups (CFUGs) in Nepal have made intensive efforts to improve degraded forests [6][7][8] and provide • investigate the tree harvesting practices in selected case studies, focusing on the compliance of regulatory instruments, including FMP, and on what guides harvesting decisions; • compare the quantity of harvest of economically valuable species (Shorea robusta Gaertn. f. hereafter S. robusta) with that of other species; • quantify the effects of harvesting practices on tree quality, health, regeneration and stand composition and appraise the reasons for the observed changes; and…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Governs Tree Harvesting in Community Forestry—Regulatory Instruments or Forest Bureaucrats’ Discretion?

Baral

Vacik

2018

Forests

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Community forestry is required to follow a forest management plan (FMP) to ensure sustainable tree harvesting. However, the role of FMPs or forest bureaucrats' discretion in guiding harvesting decisions and the resultant effects has not been explored. This paper investigates tree harvesting practices in community forests (CF) and its effects on forest sustainability, using the forest inventory panel dataset for three consecutive periods (2010, 2013 and 2016), together with qualitative information obtained by key informant interviews and a review of records of the community forest users' group. Harvesting decisions in the CF are largely guided by the decrees or schematic instructions of forest bureaucrats, where the role of the FMP remains highly contested. Whether harvesting decisions should be guided by the prescriptions of the FMP or should be regulated through decrees is a matter of discourse. Forest bureaucrats are arbitrarily reducing harvesting quantities and rarely referring to the prescriptions of the FMP. Consequently, users are compelled to harvest less than half the quantity of trees prescribed in the FMP. Furthermore, they are only allowed to harvest poor quality and dead trees. As a result, the number of good quality trees has increased, while the number of seedlings and saplings has decreased significantly. Although harvesting of saplings and seedlings is a common practice, it is against the provisions of the FMP. Though the current bureaucratic discretion has shown quick short-term effects on the forest stand conditions, the long-term impacts should not be undermined. Our findings will be useful to implementors and policy makers in Nepal and other developing countries with similar circumstances for deciding the tree harvesting. We argue for a rational approach in designing harvesting prescriptions and complying with them rather than regulating harvesting practices through guidelines, circulars and bureaucratic discretion.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Governs Tree Harvesting in Community Forestry—Regulatory Instruments or Forest Bureaucrats’ Discretion?

Baral

Vacik

2018

Forests

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“…A few recent publications (Niraula et al, 2013;Sharma et al, 2014;Poudel et al, 2014;Jaquet et al, 2015;Poudel et al, 2015) from various parts of Nepal confirm that forest coverage has increased in this millennium. The result of this policy turned out to be positive as the forest coverage again increased after years of decrease (Table 1).…”

Section: The Major Debate On Deforestation After 1990mentioning

confidence: 94%

Changing forest coverage and understanding of deforestation in Nepal Himalayas

Chapagain

Aase

2020

Geog. J. Nepal

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The environmental situation of the Hiamlayas is a matter of global concern. Understanding on Himalayas environment is usually shaped by the changing views expressed by research institutions, doner organizations, and finally by politics and power relations. In line with changing paradigms in knowledge-producing institutions, different understandings of environmental challenges in the Himalayas have emerged. Based on the literature and available data, we have tried to discern changes in forest policies, their implication on forest management and various understandings of deforestation in Nepal Himalayas that are salient in the scientific literature. The debate of deforestation/degradation on the state of Himalayan environment came on the global agenda in the 1950s. The initial focus was on population growth and pressure on natural resources. It was followed by attention to processes of development and physical interventions in a fragile environment. Most recently local participation and poverty alleviation have been high on the agenda. In this context, the present paper attempts to examine the debates in the light of recent events and circumstances related to environmental processes in general and forest management of Nepal in particular.

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“…Nepal : status and gaps P. R. Thani 1 *, R. KC 2 , B. K. Sharma 1 , P. Kandel 1 and K. Nepal 1 T he community forestry is the noble innovation of Nepal in the field of participatory forestry and is considered as one of the pioneers of the community based forest management system in the world (Rajpoudel et al, 2014). This programme was evolved in the form of 'Panchayat Forest' and 'Panchayat Protection Forest' in 1978. With the promulgation of the Forest Act, 1993 andForest Regulations, 1995; the Panchayat and Panchayat Protection Forests were handed over to the forest user groups as 'Community Forest'.…”

Section: Integrating Biodiversity Conservation and Ecosystem Servicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services into operational plan of community forest in Nepal : status and gaps

Thani¹,

Kc²,

Sharma³

et al. 2019

Banko

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3 Thani et al.After initiation of community forestry system in Nepal, the status of forest cover has improved due to significant roles of people in conservation, management and utilization of forest resources. As a result of increased productivity of the forest and restoration of degraded areas, forest users have been able to receive various economic, social, cultural and environmental benefits to strengthen their livelihood. Despite many positive outcomes of community forestry, there are still some factors which haven't allowed the proper biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services maintenance. The study carried out on 100 operational plans from different parts of the country and it showed that the incorporation status of biodiversity and ecosystem services into community forest operational plan is worse despite the fact that such plan is the main component to lead the destination of any community forest. In addition to this, some gaps and challenges were observed in community forestry which have not favoured to biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services management systematically at an optimum level. Among them, duplication problem of biodiversity and ecosystem services related issues in operational plan; timber oriented operational plan; limited provision about wildlife conservation and negative perception of people on wildlife and their conservation owing to human wildlife conflict; dominant socioeconomic factors; impact of introduced species, invasive and alien species; lacking in provision of adaptation and mitigation methods to cope with impact of climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem services and shrinking of biological corridor due to habitat fragmentation were major issues. Besides this, to address these issues, it was also identified from the national consultation workshop of forest officials and experts that most appropriate uniform methods, measures and mechanisms are needed to be developed for the complete assessment, prioritization, analysis and development of action plans to main stream biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services management into operational plan of community forestry.

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The impacts of a community forestry program on forest conditions, management intensity and revenue generation in the Dang district of Nepal

Cited by 19 publications

References 35 publications

What Governs Tree Harvesting in Community Forestry—Regulatory Instruments or Forest Bureaucrats’ Discretion?

What Governs Tree Harvesting in Community Forestry—Regulatory Instruments or Forest Bureaucrats’ Discretion?

Changing forest coverage and understanding of deforestation in Nepal Himalayas

Integrating biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services into operational plan of community forest in Nepal : status and gaps

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