National 10 (Spotlight Weekly)

Forest Management Through Collaboration

By ANANDA BHANDARI

It is now well established that management of forest resources could be better undertaken if local communities participate and their needs are appropriately addressed. Involving the people in forest protection and management has been an age-old practice in Nepal. Since time immemorial, indigenous system of forest resource management practices that established the supremacy of local community in decision-making has been embedded into the Nepalese culture.

The government has adopted various forms of forest management that are based on a participatory approach. Community Forestry Program is one of the popular ones, and this approach has been proved successful in bringing about ecological restoration, retarding the rate of soil loss in the hills and mountains. The main aim of the community forest program is to develop and manage hill forest resources through the active participation of community to meet their basic needs.

The Leasehold Forestry Program is another promising approach to manage degraded forest land by groups of people living below the poverty line with the focus on raising incomes and improving the ecological conditions of hills. In addition, the Buffer Zone Management Program and Community-Based Soil Conservation and Watershed Management Program have been implemented in different parts of the country with the aim of securing people's participation. However, the appropriateness of the Community Forestry Program for the terai region is questioned by many from different perspectives.

The Master Plan for Forestry Sector (MPFS 1988) has also emphasized on people's participation for forest management programs, mainly in the hills of Nepal and has given highest priority to the community and private forestry program.

It is thus evident that under participatory management practices, different modalities are tested and implemented based on the local situation, resource dynamics, use pattern and accessibility. It is therefore important to make sure that location-specific models of common property resource management are developed, tested and implemented.

It is often criticized that community forestry in the terai has encouraged latecomers at the cost of the indigenous community who are now miles away from forest. In order to accommodate the needs of distant users and to address various issues associated with terai forests, the government introduced the concept of Collaborative Forest Management (CoFM) in the Forest Sector Policy 2000. This concept provides the opportunity of setting up a new management mode for sustainable and productive management of terai forest through sharing of tasks and revenues among all the stakeholders, including traditional users.

Pressure on the terai forests of Nepal began increasing after the late 1950s, with the construction of East-West Highway and rehabilitation program. Thousands of hectares of terai forests were cleared both legally by governments to accommodate the new population of immigrants and to develop infrastructure for their support and illegally by in-country migrants who found the terai land to be fertile. These communities of recently migrated families, mostly from the hills, now occupy the periphery and fringes of terai forests. According to the latest survey (1998) the annual depletion rate of forests in the terai is 1.3 percent and in mountains is 0.2 percent, with the overall national average being 0.5 percent. It is estimated that annual economic loss from the forest is Rs.11 billion.

Several studies have indicated that although community forestry is a successful management mode in the hills, it cannot be truly copied in terai and needs a different participatory modality for sustainable management of highly productive and commercially valuable forests. A joint technical committee consisting of donors and government representatives has recommended concerted efforts in the terai in such way that all stakeholders, including District Development Committees and Village Development Committees, are actively involved in local resource management.

It is thus clear that for sustainable management of the terai forest, it is necessary to define the role and responsibility of major stakeholders in management, agree upon cost and benefit sharing mechanism and thus address the complex resource dynamics of terai region. The proposed collaborative forest management is a way out in this direction.

Equitable Alliances

The CoFM concept provides a new basis for forming equitable alliances between government and local communities to achieve the common horizon of conservation and continuing enhance of productivity of forests resource. The overall goals of the collaborative forest management concept are:

* To achieve more sustainable and equitable management system of forest resources

* To create a multi-stakeholder forum through the development and identification of a set of models, institutional arrangements, methods, tools and strategies to empower the local communities.

* To establish the horizontal and vertical coordination among the stakeholders

* To explore the opportunity on livelihood of the people

* To suggest a collaborative forest management mechanism to resolve the complex problems of multiple interest groups through continuing social learning process.

The term "collaborative management" is being used differently in different context such as multi-stakeholder management, participatory management, joint management, co-management, shared management and round table management. In the collaborative management process, a partnership is developed with relevant stakeholder/s that specifies and guarantees their respective functions, rights and responsibilities on management activities (Borrini-Feyerabend, 1996).

The principle of CoFM started with the concept of adaptive resource management. The term adaptive management was started in 1978 by an inter-disciplinary team of biologist and system analyst under the leadership of Canadian ecologist Clarence Holling (1995). "The release of human opportunity requires flexible, diverse and redundant regulation, monitoring that leads to corrective action and experimental probing of the continually changing reality of the world," he says. The guiding principle of the adoptive forest management is the "interface between society and the biosphere".

Following are the governing principles of CoFM:

Social Learning (Joint Learning): The CoFM process is oriented with learning principle which furnishes better intervention and improvement rather than progress through idea of action learning and adaptive management system. The collaborative concept itself is defined as a learning-based approach and focuses on reconstruction or improving the development programs and activities through field-based joint action research by applying the local and expertise knowledge.

Multidisciplinary and Multi-stakeholder Forum: This is teamwork of multi-disciplinary stakeholders in vertical and horizontal interaction to work as integrated program regarding social, political and ecological matter in all level (Micro, Meso and Macro).

Partnership of Stakeholders: CoFM believes in participation of key stakeholders, interest groups, central and local governments in planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation process. Mutually agreed upon cost and benefit distribution mechanism is devised.

The overall assumption of CoFM is to create a sense of ownership among stakeholders to the program that would result in the sustainable conservation practices at local level. The key assumptions are that involvement of local communities will promote better conservation and that devolution of property right and authority will lead to better conservation.

Efforts to manage terai forests have passed several decades without having significant output. Many scientific forest management plans were prepared but very few were implemented, partly due to lack of broad stakeholder participation. Lack of clear approach and long-term vision to address the complex situation of the terai is equally responsible. The forest resources of the terai have immense potential in terms of economic and social development. In addition, local government and communities have demonstrated a high level of commitment to collaborate in managing the forest for ecological restoration, economic benefit and livelihood opportunities. Recently, the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation has come up with new program known as Biodiversity Sector Program for Siwaliks and Terai for the management of forest in the regions through the collaborative concept. This indicates the government's seriousness and commitment to terai forest management aiming at addressing the interests' of all stakeholders.

Recommendations

Despite the huge potential, the CoFM approach is yet to be internalized in the system, where non-management has been the norm. In addition, it is to be demonstrated through good governance, transparency and efficient benefit distribution system that the program is for the benefit of all stakeholders. Some of other aspects the program should look in to are:

* National guidelines for terai and Siwalik forest landscape management should be prepared in consultation with relevant stakeholders at all level.

* Forest product distribution system to distance users, marketing strategies and appropriate guidelines should be developed.

* Roles and responsibility of stakeholders at all levels should be developed to contribute in planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation activities.

* Cost and benefit sharing mechanism among the collaborators should be clearly defined.

* District Forestry Sector Investment Fund should be established to make the forestry sector self-reliant.

* Participatory District Forest Sector Plan should be prepared.