Community Forestry Development
Strong Local Leadership Essential

By Khilendra Basnyat

DESPITE continuing efforts, Nepal’s forest resources are dwindling rapidly. Increasing population pressure is one of the main threats to the sustainability of the forests.

Problems

Growing deforestation will also convert the hills into barren land due to the erosion of the topsoil caused by the high precipitation in the Himalayan region. The flash floods and high runoff rates can induce more landslides, river damming, water logging and other problems.

Changes have been observed in climate and loss of water resources where extensive deforestation has occurred.

In many of Nepal’s middle mountains, the pressure on forest resources continues to grow. It is only through community protection that these resources can be kept from overexploitation.

Although recent legislation in Nepal provides some authority over the actions of local user groups, many of them are still unaware of these rights and responsibilities under the new laws.

The return of formal control of the forest land to local communities represents a major change in Nepal’s forest policy. It was undoubtedly difficult for the government to manage forests.

As the community forestry programme was implemented, many indigenous forest management systems run by individual households, extended families, clan groups and settlement clusters were still functioning. Some communities have developed forms of access control in order to guard forest resources. However, in areas where the government has exercised little control, the introduction of community forestry is observed as an unwanted outside intrusion of authority.

In 1999, the Nepal Forestry Development Plan was formulated and ratified as well. The plan provides an integrated planning framework in order to coordinate government and foreign assistance and investment for the systematisation and speeding up of forestry activities.

One area identified under the plan is the development of the Forest Department staff capable of working with user groups to formulate community management plans. Such a collaborative process between the Forest Department and forest user groups will allow a better integration of local and national needs as well as interests.

The Forest Department encounters a challenge in implementing the progressive community resource management policies that have been formulated by the government some decades ago.

The lack of trained technical and administrative personnel in the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, which is responsible for the implementation of the forest policy, hinders the effective working of the community forestry programme.

While the above mentioned ministry is increasing in size and capacity, providing training to the existing and new staff to work with communities in managing the forest resources remain a complicated task.

In areas close to government offices/agencies, communities have been less autonomous and have to share a great proportion of their forest resources with the country. Less isolated communities have had great interaction with the Forest Department and its programmes. However, remote villages have been left to manage their forest resources with little interaction from the forest office, regardless of the government’s plans and programmes.

Some donor agencies are working with the Forest Department, developing new approaches to community forest management and formulating new training programmes for the field staff.

The Nepal – Australian Forestry Project has produced field worker guides in order to engage the local people in developing forest management plans and also in strengthening user groups.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has extended its activities in the forestry sector by providing further support for the Institute of Forestry.

A Swiss German funded project in Tinao Watershed has developed an interactive process between families and foresters.

Likewise, the ODA-funded KHARDEP Programme placed emphasis on reorientation activities.

Donor agencies have assisted Nepal in forest resource development. However, foreign aid projects are chiefly responsible for the implementation of the community forestry programme which has been found successful in producing and distributing seedlings.

No doubt, the efforts of the Forest Department and foreign aid agencies have generated new ideas in regard to the methods for helping communities mobilise their human and material resources for improved forest and watershed management. However, much of the innovative work has concentrated on a limited number of watershed projects.

From the experiences of the past, it is evident that community forestry projects alone cannot solve Nepal’s accelerating rural energy requirements. The reason is that, under such projects, there is inadequate production from newly planted forests or existing forests to provide firewood and fodder needs of the increasing population.

Actually, the success of Nepal’s collaborative forest management will be determined by the extent to which the government agencies and community groups cooperate in attaining both the local and national needs.

Although the idea of community forestry has been gaining ground in different parts of our country, it has not been so popular in the terai region because of the lack of people’s awareness about it.

Need

In fact, community forestry development is virtually impossible without creating strong local leadership. This is testified by the fact that in a few communities where there is strong leadership, the community development programmes have been successful. However, in many communities, nothing has been done in this regard. Therefore, in order to obtain more benefits from the Community Forestry Development Programme, strong leadership should be generated at the local level.

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