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A district-level workshop on Under-Utilised Land(UUL) was held in Lamjung and Kavre on 19th and 27th April, 2016,respectively. The objective of the workshop was to share the research findings of UUL case studies and receive feedbacks from local stakeholders. Local Development Officer, delegates from DADO, DFO DLSO, CDO, FECOFUN, local political parties, media houses and farmer groups were present in the workshop. The workshop was completed in two sessions. Session 1: briefing workshop objective and presenting research finding and session 2: Group discussion. In the first session, Krishna P. Paudel briefly highlighted the national agricultural context and explained the objective of the workshop. Then after, Yuba Raj Subedi presented the key research finding of the case studies. On the second session, Naya S. Poudel facilitated the open group discussion and responded the participant’s inquires. Overall program was facilitated by Madan Bashyal. The participant actively took part in group discussion; the workshop was very dynamic and productive. Furthermore, ForestAction facilitated a national level workshop on UUL held in Kathmandu on 28th – 29th April.

Day 1  National workshop on Interaction on Ecological farming (Ecological Agriculture)

A national level workshop for the interaction on Ecological farming based agriculture was held at ForestAction Nepal, Bagdole, on 17th March, 2016. The main objective of the program was to discuss about Ecological farming as the major practice of sustainable agriculture. The participants of the program were the farmers from different districts engaged in this type of agriculture, the representatives from National Permaculture Group (NPG) and media personnels. This program was facilitated by Dr. Krishna Poudel and Kamal Bhandari of FA and was attended by 25 participants.

Day 2  National workshop on Interaction on contemporary issues of agriculture

With the major objective of interaction on the contemporary issues of agriculture, another national level workshop was held in Babarmahal, on 18th March, 2016. The major research findings of feminization of agriculture and VDC 15% budget of agriculture were presented by FA agriculture team. Furthermore, video documentary of successful women cases were also presented and, the Book of Review and Analysis of ADS was launched. The facilitation of the program was done by FA Chairperson Khem Raj Dahal. The major national stakeholders of agriculture such as representatives from Ministry of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture, Ministry of local development, Farmer representatives, Partner organizations, various NGOs/INGOs, Alliance of Agriculture for Food, Media personnels participated in the program and was attended by 64 participants.

The exchange visit to different research sites of Nepal was organized from 22-29 February, 2016 for the team from Bangladesh. The visit was the part of Community based Adaptive Learning in Management of Conflicts and Natural Resources in Bangladesh and Nepal (CALCNR) research project activity which is a collaboration in research between ForestAction Nepal, iDE in Nepal and FHRC and Nice Foundation in Bangladesh. Altogether 13 participants representing different community based organizations and its network, participated from Bangladesh. The visit was one of the project learning and sharing activity and the aim of the visit was to enhance knowledge and leadership of CBO leaders on the co-management of natural resources and to understanding the nature of conflicts around those natural resources, initiatives taken for minimizing it and its outcomes on sustainable use and conservation of resources. The team visited different Participatory Action Research (PAR) sites in Nawalparasi, Kaski and Kavre and discussions were carried out with the community people on the issues around landlessness and forest management, issues of distant users in community forestry, multiple use water system and LAPA. Furthermore, the progress and role of participator action and planning in minimizing those conflicts were also discussed.

A media interaction meeting was organized by ForestAction in Godavari. The event was organized on 26th -27th February, 2016 and had a total of 23 participants. The highlight of the program was to share and discuss the pertinent issues of drought induced food shortage in Karnali. Apart from that dialogue on current agricultural and land issues was put forth the media personnels. As a result of the program, there was extensive media coverage on contemporary agricultural issues.

A 2-Day Action Research workshop was organized in Lamjung and kavre on 1st and 2nd February and 7th and 8th February, 2016 respectively by ForestAction Nepal. The workshop was a part of Enhancing livelihoods and food security from agroforestry and community forestry in Nepal (EnLiFT) project and it was collaborated by FECOFUN and District forest Office in Lamjung and Kavre district. DFO, AFO, FECOFUN leaders of the district, CFUG leaders were the participant of the workshop. As a part of EnLiFT’s capacity building initiatives, the workshops were organized to help participants understand the participatory action research approach and enable them in reviewing and planning of EnLiFT activities. Krishna Prasad Paudel from FA, with expertise in Action Research actively contributed to the workshop by moderating as well as presenting in the event. Initially, he elaborated about the context of the workshop including how the program is designed and the importance of Action Research in EnLiFT project. After that, participants reviewed the EnLiFT activities planned earlier and contemplated on the positive aspects as well as the issues requiring improvements. Dividing themselves into three groups, the participants discussed what they could implement, the achievements so far, issues emerged and challenges they identified. Each groups then presented their group work. On second day, participants focused on identifying activities (of AF, CF and UUL) for the next one year and provided implementation plans, including the nature of support they expected from EnLiFT and other district stakeholders.

A regional workshop was held in Birtamod of Jhapa district on 24th February, 2016. The objective of the workshop was to document lessons learned and producing communication products from the delivery of the Grassroots capacity building for REDD+ project in Nepal. The different views of the participants regarding REDD was documented during the program. Chairperson of the central FECOFUN, Ganesh Karki was the chief guest of the program. FECOFUN chair of Jhapa, Chhatra Paudel was the chairman of the program. The program was facilitated by Ved Prakash Bhandari and Bikash Adhikari. The plenary session was conducted by Dr. Naya Sharma Poudyal and the program was attended by thirty two participants.

An exchange visit to different research sites of Bangladesh was organized during 20-28 December 2015. The visit was the part of Community based Adaptive Learning in Management of Conflicts and Natural Resources in Bangladesh and Nepal (CALCNR) research project activity which is a collaboration in research between ForestAction Nepal, iDE in Nepal and FHRC and Nice Foundation in Bangladesh. Altogether 12 participants representing different community based organizations (CFUGs, LAPA and MUS) and its network, FECOFUN participated the programme (see annex 1). The visit was one of the project learning and sharing activity and the aim of the visit was to enhance knowledge and leadership of CBO leaders on the co-management of natural resources, particularly the water and fisheries in Bangladesh and to understanding the nature of conflicts around those natural resources, initiatives taken for minimizing it and its outcomes on sustainable use and conservation of resources. During visit, different participatory action research sites were visited and discussions were carried out with the community people on the issues, progress and role of participator action and planning in minimizing those conflicts.

The visit was successful in enhancing the understand of participants on role of adaptive learning and PAR in transforming natural resource conflicts, strong collective action can foster ownerships on interventions and empowers communities and importance of evidences in developing negotiations amongst the conflict parties.

On 30 December, 2015 ForestAction organised a Housewarming gathering, in the new building. The occasion was graced by all our partner organisations and associates. Dr. Krishna Prasad Paudel (Executive Coordinator of FA) and Mr. Amrit Adhikari (Finance and Administrative Coordinator of FA) gave a brief speech on the journey of the organisation, so far. Mr. Khem Raj Dahal, Chairperson of FA, inaugurated the building and formally welcomed a new era for the organization.

A National Policy Dialogue on Chure Management was held in Department of Forestry, Babarmahal. The event was organized by ForestAction Nepal, Nepal Foresters’ Association (NFA) and Nepal Forester Technician Association (NeFTA), on 27 December, 2015. The purpose of the program was discussion on Chure Management amongst all stakeholders. The participants were from organizations such as AFFON, HIMAWANTI, MFSC, NAFAN, NeFTA, NFA, ForestAction Nepal, NRPP/Radio, HELVETAS, FECOFUN, Nepal engineering college, COFSUN-Nepal, Foresters, DoF, DFAN, FFM, MSFP-PCO and a few member of parliament.

First presentation was by Vijay Raj Subedi of Department of Forestry (DoF) on, “Chure conservation, its management and questions and suggestions regarding the same”. Second presentation was by Dr. Naya Sharma Paudel of ForestAction Nepal on, “Chure Conservation interventions: Alienation of local people and potential consequences to collective actions on forest commons”.The 6 Panelists of the Program were Hari Rokka- former Member of Parliament, Dr. Keshav Kandel- forestry specialist, Dr. Nagendra Yadav- forester/ former member of President Chure-Tarai Madesh Conservation Development Board, Shekhar Yadav- DFO/NFA, Shanta Chaudhary – Former Member of Parliament and Ganesh Karki- FECOFUN.

This workshop on ‘Deforestation and Forest Degradation, REDD+ and Gender’ was held on Friday, 20 November 2015 at Indreni Food Land, New Baneshwor. The workshop provided opportunities to share and exchange ideas and issues on gender in forestry in general and REDD+ in Nepal in particular.

There was also a presentation by Rahul Karki of ForestAction Nepal on the study regarding “Understanding the driver-commodities-gender nexus” in Nepal. Moreover, the panelists also provided their suggestions/ ideas on gender issues in forestry. Various governmental and non-governmental organizations like FECOFUN, MoFSC, COFSUN, ICIMOD, SIAS, HIMAWANTI, NEFIN, MSFP attended this workshop.

An independent Mid-Term Evaluation (MTR) of CALCNR was conducted between 2 and 4 November 2015 by the team of external reviewers. The evaluation team comprised of Mr. Jan Joost Kessler, Ms. Corinne Lamain and Mr. Ashok Swain. The main aim of the MTR was to provide an overview of progress of CALCNR in its first term by consortium whereas evaluation team evaluated the progress, analyzed the ongoing activities, provided feedbacks on the ongoing activities, probable future steps and discussed in the revision of project log frame as per necessity.

At the first day, the consortium presented the overview of the project and described the progress and challenges of the project on the field of science, knowledge, capacity development, collaboration and so on. SWOT analysis was also carried out to discuss about the main issues of the project as identified. Field visit was made on the two participatory action research sites at Kawasoti and Bardaghat of Nawalparasi district along with discussion at local stakeholder’s level. The third day of MTR was focused on the discussion with the stakeholders of central level, log frame reviewing and also feedbacks from evaluators.

An independent Mid-Term Evaluation (MTR) of CALCNR was conducted between 2 and 4 November 2015 by the team of external reviewers. The evaluation team comprised of Mr. Jan Joost Kessler, Ms. Corinne Lamain and Mr. Ashok Swain. The main aim of the MTR was to provide an overview of progress of CALCNR in its first term by consortium whereas evaluation team evaluated the progress, analyzed the ongoing activities, provided feedbacks on the ongoing activities, probable future steps and discussed in the revision of project log frame as per necessity.

At the first day, the consortium presented the overview of the project and described the progress and challenges of the project on the field of science, knowledge, capacity development, collaboration and so on. SWOT analysis was also carried out to discuss about the main issues of the project as identified. Field visit was made on the two participatory action research sites at Kawasoti and Bardaghat of Nawalparasi district along with discussion at local stakeholder’s level. The third day of MTR was focused on the discussion with the stakeholders of central level, log frame reviewing and also feedbacks from evaluators.