NTFP In Community Forest
Means Of Rural Poverty Alleviation

By Hari Krishna Uprety

NEPAL is a mountainous country. Majority of the people live in rural areas. More than 40 per cent are below poverty line. People primarily depend on agriculture for their living. They are using indigenous knowledge for resource management. However, their management practice, commitment and dedication are really exemplary and appreciable. The efforts made by the community forest user groups (CFUG) are being appreciated across the nation and overseas as well. Community forest is a model piece, which is attracting donors over the years.

Success

It can be said that community forests are most successful evidence of natural resource management in Nepal. It is also accepted that, community forests are the models for participatory resource management. The approaches of participation are also being replicated in other similar areas of development. This lesson was first learnt from the practices of community forests.

More than 80 per cent people are living in the rural areas. Agriculture is the primary means of their living. It is supplemented by the forest resources basically to fulfill the energy demand and for cattle raising. In some parts of the country, people have taken up the forest resources as the income-generating sources by conserving, collecting and selling non-timber forest products. However, the income generated from the forest products is not significant due to lack of knowledge of entrepreneurship development in the rural community.

The government has handed over the degraded forest land to the community. People take over the forest lying in the area of their access and their surroundings. Rural people therefore, are managing those degraded forests that are nearly impossible to manage through the HMG's management intervention practices. Well-managed and productive forests are not being handed over to the people. However, HMG managed forests are comparatively deteriorating more than the community forests.

It is obvious that financial and other additional resources are sufficient in the HMG's management with respect to the rural people. Furthermore, such resources are far beyond the access of rural community. However, unbiased judgement reveals that the community forest managed by illiterate and off hand people are comparatively better and more productive than those managed by highly skilled people with adequate resources of the government. Everybody should appreciate the contribution of the rural people.

In the beginning days of community forest management, people focused on the protection of tree species only. Most of the user groups ignored other species including non-timber forest products (NTFP) and swept them away during weeding, thinning and pruning. However, after the implementation of proper management system by the community, herbal and other non-timber species also found favourable habitat to grow up. People have become aware and understand the value of forest products over the days due to the regular contacts of local, regional and even by the foreign traders.

Nepal's Far Western Region has a potential for herbal collection, production and sale. People are collecting and selling the forest products without considering the regeneration capacity over the years. The seasonal herb collectors visit the area from southern part and even from India. Local herb traders also collect different herbal as well as non-timber species e.g. Ritha, Amala, Timur in the cheapest price and they sell in high price in Terai and India also. Due to this, local people are deprived of the income of their own resources. Moreover, it is very difficult to shift their age-old practice of agriculture to the development of herbal business enterprise.

The situation has been gradually changing over the years. It has become possible due the emergence of different local NGOs and CBOs. These are being assisted by different donor agencies for changing the attitude of local people and to explore their indigenous knowledge in conservation and development of resources. As a result, people are gradually orienting towards the conservation and management of NTFP within their community forest. For this, people have started to establish gender-wise NTFP conservation and management groups. Some of them have also developed herbal management cooperatives by merging the set groups. Development of cooperatives has been made for the easy handling of NTFP and for convenience of rural people. Field based NGOs and CBOs are working as a facilitator in formalising and institutionalising the user groups and cooperatives. People have started to cultivate different indigenous and exotic plant species in a commercial scale.
Hope

It can be hoped that when the people enriched with a threshold level of awareness, NTFP available in their community forest and cultivated in their private land will be the means of poverty alleviation in the rural community.

Praise Be Unto Them

By Gyan Rai

THOUGH it is a common practice among the Nepalese to sell or put on sale their immovable properties like houses and land to embark on commercial ventures or fulfill obligations, a Nepalese litterateur, as per a news item carried by this daily recently claimed that he was selling his landed property purely to promote Nepalese literary works. The litterateur wanted to utilise the money derived from selling his plot of land to bring out an audio-visual album that would be containing songs and visual clippings of 15 poets and singers. Of interest to note is that this lover of Nepalese literary works is a bank employee.

But then, he is verily not the first to sell his landed property to fulfill the calling of his heart. Nor will he be the very last. There had been others before him; there will surely be others after him. That too, not only in Nepal, but also in many other countries. Nevertheless, what this proves is that regardless of one's profession, position in society or even socio-economic status, one can still pursue the inner callings of one's heart-and which could have wider beneficial impacts on many spheres of human endeavour as well as all walks of life. Provided, of course, such callings are followed with a sense of dedication, devotion and, more importantly, selflessness. For, in lieu of all this, such pursuits could degenerate into crass aggrandizement of the pursuers' own baser instincts and interests.

However, a modicum of self-interest is always behind all such endeavours-and which, undoubtedly, can be solely attributed to human nature. In other words, without a sense of self, such works would be quite impossible to pursue to their logical conclusions. But what truly differentiates such human endeavours from similar other human pursuits is that while the former, after their completion, not only manage to withstand the intense scrutiny of the society but also the march of history as well as time, the latter, due to societal indifference and neglect, tend to be completely forgotten over time.

In this regard, a cursory glimpse of the beautiful art and artifacts and awe-inspiring edifices in the form of palaces, temples, statues of personalities who had contributed much to enhance the glory of the nation in all walks of life as well as other numerous monuments that are still within our midst, would suffice. Not forgetting, of course, the painstakingly written manuscripts on various topics that ranged from language to literary works, poetry to drama, painting to music, iconography to metallurgy, medicine to politics, taxation to trade, ethics to judiciary and culture to religion.

Undoubtedly, all these praiseworthy works were definitely not the endeavours of only the well endowed sections of society. Nor, for that matter, of those who were solely propelled by their single-minded pursuit of pelf and power for themselves as well as their family members. Rather, they were verily the handiwork of Nepalese hailing from various strata of society and who were singularly inspired to enrich the existing societal fabric by dedicating their various works.

As such, if the Nepalese societal fabric is to be continuously enriched through works bequeathed by philantrophists to the people at large, then it looks to reason on the part of all to not only encourage the initiatives of selfless persons like the litterateur mentioned above but also to honour their dedication and spirit by giving them due societal recognition.

What Ails Nepalese Carpet Industry

By Beepana, Kunjana, Prativa & Sri Krishna

DESPITE decades old trade diversification policy of the government, a high sensitiveness still persists in the foreign trade sector due to Nepal's over dependency on few products and only on few major markets. This has posed a big challenge in attaining sustainable export growth which can be achieved only through launching of result oriented export product and market based promotonal programmes. Nepalese hand knotted carpet is one of the few but leading export products that has now reached pathetic stage. The current scenario is precarious which need urgent corrective and promotional activities with an objective to consolidate achievements made up to now and further expand its production and marketing.

Significance

Export of Nepalese woollen carpets occupies a special significance in the Nepalese economy since it is the largest foreign exchange earner and employment generator. The Nepalese carpet is well known for its ancient and exotic craftsmanship with qualities of strength, design and economy. Nepalese carpets, which initially were made from 100 per cent Tibetan wool, are now produced with a product mix of Tibetan wool and New Zealand wool; the mix up percentage normally is composed of 70:30, 50:50 and 30:70 depending upon the importer's choice. The Tibetan wool has the characteristics of strong, durable and resilient property which make Nepalese carpet unique to other competitors'.
The overseas exports of Nepalese woollen carpets expanded fast particularly till the mid-1990s. The largest export was recorded in 1993/94 with the export volume reaching a high of 3,325,123 Sq. M. after that it started to decline. The declaining trend pushed the carpet export down to 2,242,692 Sq. M. in 2000/01 and further low to only 1,258,941 Sq. M. during the first nine months of the current fiscal year 2001/02.

The detection of the health-hazardous Azo chemical in wool dyeing together with the use of child labour in carpet manufacturing suddenly surfaced up, that damaged the goodwill of Nepalese carpets in the international markets. The negative impacts on carpet exports got momentum when low quality Indian carpets were sold in the international markets as Nepal origin carpets. The economic downturn in the international markets due to recession of the 1990s and the incident of 11 September 2001 in the USA have also fuelled the further decline in carpet exports. Consequently, Nepalese carpets currently face two major problems of reduced demand and price decline in the international market.

There is an urgent need to break the heavy market concentration from Germany which took the lead position covering more than 60 per cent of total carpet exports to other potential markets like France, Spain and Nordic countries of Europe, Canada and USA. Such a market diversification may not be achievable in a short span of time. This calls for effective and continued market research and promotion programmes like participation and organisation of trade fairs and exhibitions, market studies and bilateral consultations at government levels for preferential market entry facilities. A diversified production and marketing approach may be taken to meet the varying needs of the potential buyers. For example, European buyers prefer light colour with 60 knots where as most of the American buyers like fast colour with more than 80 knots.

From marketing point of view Nepal has an additional geographical disadvantage of its landlocked position. Carpet exporters have to bear double overhead cost of transit transportation to and from Calcutta port. For instance, the transit transportation cost has to be incurred while importing wool and other raw materials, and again similar expenses are to be borne at the time of exporting carpets. Cost effective measures need to be explored in the production and export of carpets in order to make it more competitive in the foreign market. As a part of cost effective measure, the dry port or inland clearance depot of Birgunj developed by the government with loan from the World Bank may reduce the transit cost after its operation.

Bad Shape

In consideration to the economic contributions of carpet manufacturing, the carpet exports must be sustained and promoted further with joint efforts of the government and private sector. The worsening peace and security problems due to the Maoist activities are badly affecting the carpet production as well as the inflow of tourists. All these factors have brought the carpet manufacturing activity to a very bad shape that has caused the closure of many small carpet industries. Therefore, it is also equally important to maintain peace and security without which entrepreneurs, investors and workers cannot work smoothly and peacefully in the country.

This article is jointly written by Beepana, Kujana, Prativa and Sri Krishna, all MBA students in Kathmandu University.