For Environment, Democracy and Livelihoods
Community Forestry in Nepal: A Policy Innovation for Local Livelihoods.
The Community Forestry Program in Nepal encompasses a set of policy and institutional innovations that empower local communities to manage forests for livelihoods, while also enhancing conservation benefits. The program was launched in the mid-1970s as part of an effort to curb the widely perceived crisis of Himalayan forest degradation, when the government of Nepal came to the conclusion that active involvement of local people in forest management was essential for forest conservation in the country. Nepal’s Community Forestry Program innovations encompass a well-defined legal and regulatory framework, participatory institutions, benefit sharing mechanisms, community-based forestry enterprises, and biodiversity conservation strategies. The program is considered a global innovation in the field of participatory environmental governance (Kumar 2002), and its history of implementation and program evolution usefully illustrates a path toward meeting the twin goals of conservation and poverty reduction…
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