The community forestry in Nepal is the innovative approach in the field of participation and is regarded as one of the pioneers in community-based forest management system globally (Rajpoudel et al. 2014). It has existed already for 40 years covering to the wider scale especially in Middle Hills of Nepal. Nepal comprises more than 22 thousand community forests covering more than 2, 237, 670. 524 ha to 2, 907, 871 households for protection, management, utilization and benefit sharing of forest resources (DoF 2018) and this is increasing continuously.
Table 1: Data of Community Forestry of Nepal, DoF 2018
Indicator Number Share Source
Households directly affected 2, 907, 871 (32% of total population)
DoF 2018
Number of CFUGs <22,000 DoF 2018
Number of districts with community forestry operations
Area of forest under CFUG management < 2,237,670.
524
(25% of total forest area)
DoF 2009
Community forestry program is one of the key components of local forest management for equitable sharing between stakeholders and the management of sustainable forest resources.
CFUG is currently established as one of the largest and most powerful community organizations in the country, and while other forms of forest management are also in the race, community forestry programs have dominated other forest management strategies (HMGN 2000). For smooth implantation of CF, some major steps have been mentioned in the Forest Act, Forest Rules and Community Forestry Guidelines that every CFUGs should follow. At first user should be identified and then CFUGs should be formed. After that CFUGs constitution should be formed so that there
won’t be any conflicts. Along with the constitution, operational plan should also be formed with proper planning. Those prepared constitution and OP should be followed and implemented thoroughly. However, implementation is not the end point, they should be revised and monitored time and again.
The actual initiation of community forestry program actually evolved from 1978 when there was Panchayat system in Nepal and they were given the name as 'Panchayat Forest' and 'Panchayat Protection Forest'. These forests were later handed over to the forest user groups as 'Community Forest' under the Forest Act, 1993 and Forest Regulations, 1995. In this process, local people were given rights to utilize, protect and manage the forest resources as per their willingness and all the revenue collected from that forest will be in their vicinity. This approach was mainly introduced to protect large scale deforestation and degradation as Government centric approach was not worth it. Thus, to reduce the forest degradation and deforestation, it was decided to try community-based forest management approach. Although, livelihood stability is also connected with the forest degradation, but the primary goal of CF establishment was just forest restoration (Springate-Baginski & Blaikie 2003).
Earlier, the forest management responsibility was taken over by local Panchayat 2, but it failed.
The delivered forest were badly degraded and the main forest users were excluded in the whole process. However, by late 1980s, the Master Plan for the Forestry Sector came officially with a sign of involving local people in the forest management. In late 1970’s, government realized the roles of local users in the forest management as they are the real users and the one close to the forest. Considering this, a strategy of CF was made and then various policies and guidelines were formed for the active participation of people. Later it was decided to hand-over almost all possible forests in the mid-hills to the CFUGs for the sustainable management of the forest. This decision was made under the Master Plan for Forestry Sector (MPFS) Nepal 1988 (HMGN 1988).
In 1990, the local Panchayati system was abolished and Nepal had become a democratic country after which user groups were given complete power to use, protect and manage community forests.
The Forest Act of 1993 and the Forest Rules of 1995 (HMGN 1995) give Community forests user groups (CFUGs) the prior right to manage community forests and from then the participatory processes got the legal and procedural basis for its existence. The Forest Act of 1993 defines the CFUG as a registered group of those “desirous to utilize the forest products by developing and
conserving such forest for the collective interest”. CFUG was established as an independent organization with land use rights and forest tenure that must be legally registered at the relevant District Forest Office (DFO). The role of DFO has shifted towards to facilitating and advising the user groups rather than only policing the forests. According to the policies formed, local people have rights and access to manage, utilize, protect and share the benefits of the community forestry (Gilmour & Fisher 1991).
The community forestry program in Nepal is a well-defined and inclusive approach comprising of all aspects of sustainability from policies formulations to livelihood increment, biodiversity conservation strategies, enterprises, social inclusive, forest restoration, equitable benefit sharing mechanism and many more. This might be the reason; it has been recognized as a global innovation for participatory environmental governance (Kumar 2002). Another reason is that it also uplifts the economic status of local people which supports in poverty reduction of the nation, though it was not thought before but it came out with twin to conservation (Kanel & Acharya 2008, Pokharel et al. 2007).
Nepal's new forest program includes improved legal and regulatory frameworks, cooperating agencies, benefit-sharing strategies, local forestry and biodiversity conservation strategies. The program is seen as a new global innovation in the area of environmental management and cooperation (Kumar 2002) and has evolved using a history of implementation and a viable approach to achieving conservation and poverty reduction goals (Kanel and Acharya 2008, Pokharel et al. 2007).
The Community Forestry Program in Nepal encompasses many policies and institutional innovations that enable local communities to manage forests for their livelihoods and enhance conservation benefits. The process of CF is almost similar like political process in Nepal, general assembly of CF that are usually all the members of the CFUG, have the power to select CFUG committee. The assembly generally gather one or twice a year and select the candidates for forming users’ committee through voting or elections. They also, define the roles and responsibilities of the User’s committee together and the user’s committee act as a bridge between forest management system and the local users for the smooth implementation of CF activities.
After the introduction of the community forestry program in Nepal, inevitably there has been improvement in forest condition along with the livelihood increment of local people (Acharya
2002, Kanel 2004). However, in the actual field, there is still dominancy of men and elite groups in the decision making due to which the issues and voice of women, poor and disadvantaged group has not been included. In addition, the Forestry Program uses the concept of the community as a homogenous entity. Therefore, there is no difference between different social, economic or political groups within the community. This allows the elites to take over in forest management process without consulting poor and marginalized groups in the community.