For Environment, Democracy and Livelihoods
Community and private forests are the main sources of timber in rural and urban areas of Nepal. The logs sold from private and community forests are often sawn in the saw mills in nearby markets. Users’ needs to pay a bulk amount of money for sawing saw logs in addition to their full day engagement. Similarly manually sawing is very expensive and the quality of sawn timber also not upto the standard.
Considering the hardship that communities are facing, the idea of testing a portable saw mill that would provide door to door quality service for timber sawing was envisioned during the design of EnLiFT2 project. Portable sawmills are an attractive microenterprise, where farmers can produce lumber for their own use and sell the surplus or offer custom sawing for neighbors. A low up‐front investment coupled with the ability to maximize returns on timber make this type of harvest attractive from many perspectives.
The EnLiFT2 project team supported the trial of the portable sawmill purchased by the DFO Sindhupalchowk. In particular, EnLiFT2 supported the testing of sawmill to assess the technical, financial and social feasibility.
