ForestAction Nepal in collaboration with Portland State University organized a workshop to share the findings of the research entitled “Community Forestry and REDD+: Synergy and Trade Offs” with the financial support of World Bank. The workshop, held on 4th June 2017 at Hotel Himalaya, aimed at sharing new evidences on outcomes of community forestry in forest management, biodiversity, carbon and equity, and their implications to the design and implementation of REDD+ in Nepal and beyond. A total of 4 papers were presented by representatives from Portland State University, ForestAction Nepal, REDD IC and ICIMOD. The participants were from various NGOs, INGOs as well as government sector working closely with issues related to REDD+.
Category: News
Facilitation of Advocacy Training Workshop on Local Government: Roles, Responsibilities and Rights in Changing Federal Structure and Addressing Food, Agriculture and Land
A three-day training workshop on Advocacy facilitation was held from 17th to 19th July at SAHAMATI, Nawalparasi. The participants of the workshop included OXFAM partners from its working area. The changing context of food, agriculture and land as well as the issues of chemical and pesticide free agriculture were discussed along with the emerging roles of local government in addressing issues related to agriculture. The training was designed to develop knowledge and skills of the local representatives, development frontiers and relevant stakeholders to understand agriculture issues and the local agriculture legal framework and plans.
Interactive Discussion Session on “Effectiveness in the Implementation of Agricultural Insurance”
ForestAction Nepal in collaboration with Alliance of Agriculture for Food and OXFAM organized an interactive discussion session on 7th June 2017 at Babarmahal, Kathmandu. The main objective of the program was to discuss about the challenges under the existing policy advocacy of Agricultural insurance as well as challenges found in the existing practices and exercises. Total 30 participants representing National Farmers Group Federation, National Land Rights Forum, Ministry of Agricultural Development were also engaged in the discussion to find out the possible solutions for such challenges. Mr Navaraj Basnet shared various issues associated with Agricultural Insurance from the findings of research conducted in 6 different districts, the main point being Inaccessibility of Agricultural Insurance among Small Farmers. Ms Karishma Gurung shared her findings from research conducted in 8 districts from financial support of OXFAM thereafter.
Alliance Meeting on Appropriate Agriculture Technology
An informal discussion on Appropriate Agriculture Technology was held at ForestAction Nepal on 10th May 2017. The major agendas for the discussion were agriculture technology, horticultural processing and seed conservation in the probable regions to collaborate in future. The major participants of the discussion were the stakeholders directly associated with the agriculture technology conservation. The participants of the interaction expressed their ideas related to the appropriate agriculture technology. Moreover, sharing of new technology, walnut processing machine was done by Helvetas.
Facilitation for Advocacy Uptake to Oxfam’s “Balancing Unpaid Care Work and Paid Work” Workshop
ForestAction Nepal participated in the workshop, “Balancing unpaid care work and paid work” organized by OXFAM Nepal on 31st May, 2017. The major role of ForestAction was facilitation of the advocacy uptake during the group discussion. The sharing of the study was done by the research team that conducted survey in various districts. The overall results from the study towards economic empowerment of women were shared by the team. After the sharing and discussion session, the floor was transferred for group work. The facilitation of the advocacy uptake was done by Krishna Paudel from ForestAction Nepal. The participants were divided into four groups and following topics were given for discussion:
- What might be the possible solutions of “Balancing unpaid care work and paid work for women”?
- What might be the take home message from this workshop?
- What might be three policy advocacy issues regarding the topic to work upon?
Alliance Meeting for Update of Local Election Context
Alliance of Agriculture for Food (AAF) organized a half day interaction at ForestAction Nepal on 22 May 2017. The major agendas for discussion were update of changing context after local election and future intervention to collaborate at local levels. The participants of the interaction were regular alliance members including OXFAM. The actual impact of alliance’s election manifesto in various working districts of alliance was discussed during the meeting. Members expressed that the manifesto prepared by the alliance had a positive impact at local level. The interaction went to the second phase for planning to conduct local level interactions with the newly elected representatives. The division of the districts to conduct several interactions was made among the alliance members. ForestAction Nepal took the initiative to conduct such interactions with newly elected representatives at province number 6. Similarly, other alliance members took the initiatives for other provinces.
Alliance Press Meet for Sharing Agricultural Election Manifesto
With the joint collaboration of National Farmers’ Group Federation and National Land Right Forum, Alliance of Agriculture for Food (AAF) had prepared and published agricultural election manifesto. The document was made public through a press meet held at Nepal Krishi Patrakar Pratisthan, Sambad Dabali, Anamnagar on 18th April 2017. The representatives from all the three collaborators kept their views regarding the appeal to voters and candidates so as to raise awareness to incorporate the issues of small holders, women and landless farmers as candidates’ agenda. The concerned stakeholders of the alliance and media were present in the press meet.
NLRF, NFGF, Alliance of Agriculture Food and its member’s response to Local Election: Appeal to Voters and Candidates
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First National Workshop on Silviculture
The forests resource assessment report 2014 reports 5 % increment of forest cover in 20 years’ time from 1990. Despite of this increment, there has not been much improvement in the quality and productivity of the forestland mainly due to the subsistence forest management practices. As a result, the full potential of forests to produce its goods and services could not be harnessed. In the past, several silvicultural practices were demonstrated on various forest types. However, these practices could not be scaled up due to differences on understanding on the importance of silvicultural interventions.
To address these issues, the Department of Forests in collaboration with other departments under the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation and non-governmental organizations is organizing a three-day “National Workshop on Silviculture” on the particular theme of “Silviculture for Sustainable Forest Management”. This workshop will provide a common platform for the government, non-government, and academic sectors to identify methods on and lessons from various silvicultural piloting and intervention experiences, to recommend for their effective implementation.
Please follow the link below for more detail and e-copy of brochure.
Workshop on Policy and Measures: Validation and Progress Sharing
The workshop was organized on December 23, 2016 at Hotel Himalaya, Lalitpur. It was organized by the REDD Implementation Centre of the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation, Government of Nepal and was supported by the UN-REDD Program (FAO, UNDP and UNEP). A team from ForestAction Nepal comprising of Naya Sharma Paudel, Shambhu Dangal, Rahul Karki and Anukram Adhikary was participating in the workshop to make a presentation on the UN-REDD Study entitled “Analysis of Policies and Measures in addressing drivers of deforestation and forest degradation and barriers to improved forest management”. The purpose of the presentation was to share the study’s findings and also acquire validation, feedback and comments from the participants on the study as a whole. Furthermore, the team from ForestAction Nepal will use the comments thus received to strengthen their report and eventually share it with the REDD Implementation Center, UN-REDD (Bangkok), and UNDP (Nepal) by end of December, 2016.
Forest tenure reform and investment outcomes: Evidence from community forest enterprises in Nepal
This research sharing workshop was held on 16 December, 2016 in Kathmandu. The participants represented various organizations such as CIFOR, ForestAction, MOFsc, Tribhuvan University, COFSON, SDC, IAAS, HANDPASS, DOF, DFRS, IUCN, NEFIN, ACOFUN, Kavre Ban Pariwar Sangh, Fenfit, forest entrepreneurs and academicians. This workshop was held with the objective of sharing the research findings pertaining to forest tenure reform, highlighting its economic domain.
The two presentations of the day were: i) Devolution of forest rights and sustainable forest management presented by Dr. Steven Lawry, CIFOR and ii) Forest tenure reform and investment outcomes: evidence from community forest enterprise in Nepal presented by Dr. Bishnu Prasad Sharma, Tribhuvan University
The presentation was followed by discussion amongst the panelist and the participants, in which they provided valuable insights on the research.
Post-disaster resilience and agro-ecological transition in Nepal
A collaborative team comprising Professor Inger Maaren ( University of Bergen), Bikash Adhikari, Govinda Paudel, Dinesh Paudel (ForestAction Nepal Researchers), Jessica Dicarlo, Katie Epstein ( University of California, Berkeley graduates) recently completed an intensive 5-week fieldwork session from May 28, 2016 in Dolakha district. The goals of the project were to broadly examine the impacts and implication of the 2015 earthquake on households, communities and agro-ecological systems. This project was conveived , written and funded from a Peder Sather Grant Program Collboration ( Norwegian government funds) between the University of Bergen, Norway and the University of California, Berkeley.
The field team employed a broad set of investigatory and participatory methods including household surveys, key informant and informal interviews, focus groups and discussions, participant observation, crop calendars and participatory budgeting. Extensive time was spent in the district’s commercial capital, Charikot, where the field team interviewed numerous stakeholders including members from the District Administrator Office, District Development Committee, District Disaster Relief Committee, District Forest Office, District Agriculture Development Office, District Soil Conservation Office, District Livestock Office, District Police Office, VDC, major political parties, journalists, leading farmers, NGOs and INGOs. Data was collected on agricultural production and aid development project spending and allocation. Household surveys were completed in two contrasting villages, Sundrawati and Boch, with subsistence-based livelihood and increased market-orientation and access respectively.
Findings from the data are numerous and far-reaching. The earthquakes had a profound effect on individual households, communities and district-wide infrastructure. Physical damage to property and landscape is visible and persistent and many of the individuals interviewed and surveyed remain without adequate housing, despite significant efforts by the government and aid organizations to deliver much needed materials and cash. Agricultural systems were most impacted by damaged water sources for irrigation and drinking as well as widespread livestock death, which hinders manure production, an essential input for subsistence-based crops like maize, millet, wheat and paddy. To meet the needs of increasing income and reduced labor availability, many farmers are turning to low labor, high value and market-oriented crops like kiwi, cardamom and vegetables. These findings and more will be discussed more extensively at an upcoming FA workshop on July 26th and in a Social Science Baha paper presentation. A collaborative team from University of Bergen, UC Berkeley and ForestAction Nepal, developed and refined the survey instruments and will be collaborating in the future on data analysis, writing, and dissemination.