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Programme, LF within CF, agroforestry within state
plantations and public land forestry – are being imple-
mented to contribute to poverty reduction as per
national and Millennium Development Goals targets.
Success with CF in the hills encouraged an attempt
to replicate this in Terai region, but it did not work
as well due to contention between existing residents
and new migrants for access and use rights. Later this
issue became the subject of policy discourse and the
forest administration endorsed a collaborative forest
management policy to involve distant users in forest
management initiatives. This initiative was financially
supported by the Government of the Netherlands and
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The Annapurna and Kangchenjunga conservation
areas have been successfully managed by local commu-
nities. Similarly, there has been good conservation of
forests in the buffer zone around the parks and reserves.
In this endeavour GoN gratefully acknowledges the
financial and technical assistance received from the
Government of Finland, US, UK and UNDP.
Major achievements
So far, more than 1.6 million ha of forest land has been
entrusted to 2.1 million user households associated
with 17,800 forest user groups, which represents almost
48 per cent of the national population and one third of
the state forest land. The degraded forests in the hills
have been successfully restored due to effective moni-
toring, enforcement and protection activities against
forest encroachment, forest fire, free grazing and illicit
felling. The growing stock, forest coverage and biodi-
versity have substantially improved in CF compared to
adjoining open access forests.
Findings from various studies indicate that CF favours
biodiversity conservation.
6
The improved forest manage-
ment activities – cleaning, thinning and harvesting of
dead and dying trees – facilitates natural regeneration
After unification of the states in 1769, forest guards were appointed to
protect key forests, large segments of which were later gifted as private
property to family members of the rulers. In the early 20th century,
a Working Plan Office was established for the sustainable supply of
railway sleepers to India, leading to further significant impact on forests.
Following the democratic revolution in the 1950s, the
Government of Nepal (GoN) nationalized all of these gifted forests
with the Private Forest Nationalization Act 1957. The result was
mixed due to a weak and ineffective communication system. GoN
further attempted to halt deforestation by empowering the forestry
organization through sanctioning new Forest Acts and regulations,
but this did little to halt deforestation.
During the global oil crisis in the 1970s, Nepal required a
sustained supply of wood-fuel energy from the mid-hill region,
leading to over-exploitation of forests, soil erosion and ecosystem
deterioration. The Staff Appraisal Report of the World Bank in 1978
forecast that if the rate of forest degradation continued, all accessi-
ble forests in the Hills and Tarai would disappear within 15 and 25
years respectively.
5
This issue was addressed by the GoN through
a subsidiary forest resource management policy that eventually
became the benchmark for establishing a community-based forest
management (CBFM) regime in Nepal.
Evolution of the CBFM regime
As recommended by the National Forest Plan 1976, the prevailing Forest
Acts and Regulations were amended to authorize local communities to
take over forest management responsibilities from the State agency. This
was later supported by the Decentralization Act of 1982. When the politi-
cal system changed in 1990, these forests were then handed over to local
forest users as Community Forests (CF). After approval of the Master
Plan for the Forestry Sector in 1989, there was both external and internal
support for the development of a sustainable approach to forest manage-
ment. To date almost one third of forests are under the CBFM regime, of
which CF alone occupies almost 90 per cent.
Adoption of context-specific modality
Initiatives such as pro-poor responsive forestry intervention under
different modalities – including Leasehold Forestry and Livestock
Local participation in carbon inventory for REDD+
Image: ICIMOD