Community forestry at a crossroads

It is often believed that crises open up avenues for opportunities. The whole world witnessed the global health crises of Covid-19 that triggered widespread panic and resulted in loss of lives, while businesses closed down due to the economic downturn. Yet, several governments and people learnt and developed strategies to cope with such situations, and many of them worked well. On the positive side, there is a realization that we need a certain strategy to cope with a certain crisis. This is because crises often trigger a sense of urgency, thus actuating solutions. And when crises mitigation strategies are explored through collaborative deliberations, that would certainly cultivate perspectives for change. A perfect example of this was the International Community Forestry Conference held on March 4-5 in Kathmandu.

The conference was conceived to not only bring together national and international researchers, practitioners, activists and policy-makers, but also to reflect on the achievements and emerging challenges facing the community forestry in Nepal.

An innovative program

Nepal’s community forestry has witnessed four decades of experimentation, adaptive management and expansion across the country. Not only has it evolved into a robust system of devolving management and resource use rights to local communities through legally-recognized and perpetually self-governed institutions, it has also functioned to sustain and improve the lives of those who rely on forests. More than 22,000 registered groups operate across the country, and have benefited 16.6m people through the management of over 1.8m hectares of forests. With decades of experimentation and institutionalization, there is a wider consensus on the positive contributions of community forestry in Nepal. Yet, with fundamental shifts in the socioeconomic context of the country, due mainly to increasing outmigration, demographic changes, shifts in agricultural practices, whether people-forest relations still remain the same is a moot question. One of the central highlights of the conference was that Nepal’s community forestry is at a crossroads, while some emphasized that it is struggling to overcome ‘crises’.

At a crossroads

In recent years, there is a growing concern over efficacy and impact of community forestry, mainly in terms of its economic rationale. In fact, a large body of research has emerged, confirming that community forestry’s contribution to the livelihoods of people is currently much less than its actual potential. Most of the problems have been attributed to arbitrary policy decisions and lack of institutional capacity, both on the part of the government agency as well as the community forest groups themselves. Nevertheless, the problem does not end there.
The community groups seem to lack enthusiasm to capitalize on the legal space that has been progressive in the last few years, especially following a federal restructuring of the country. Several presenters at the conference argued that we are battling with a crisis, and most importantly the crisis of dwindling ‘collective action’, the fundamental pillar that community forestry of Nepal stood up on four decades ago.

While some presenters underlined the successful contribution of community forestry and ongoing shifts in the priority, others accentuated the factors leading to shifting forest-people relations. Most importantly, the outmigration and remittance economy has dominated the subsistence use of community forests, emerging livelihood opportunities in the domestic market are allowing people to shift their interests to city centers. On the grim side, economic returns from community forests have not been able to compensate for the people’s efforts in managing their forests. One of the presenters stated, the normative shift in people’s priority from “when will the forest open” to “no one comes to the forest these days” is an illustration of changing preferences in engaging with the forest. That has taken a toll on the traditional farming practices that we had for decades, including a decline in the number and type of livestock in rural areas. Several other presentations foregrounded proximate and underlying factors responsible for this, including increasing instances of human-wildlife conflict resulting in economic losses to rural households, forest fires, expanding invasive species within the forests and many more. All these factors, compounded by expired operational plans and lack of local capacity and support for their renewal, have resulted in a declining interest in community forestry.

The legacy

The narrative on the theory of Himalayan Degradation, popularized by Eckholm in 1975, sparked a global concern about the impact of environmental degradation in Nepal. This in fact drew wider attention of the donors, giving rise to a sense of urgency to revert deforestation and forest degradation. This brought the donors, namely the Swiss, Australian and the British, among others, to provide support for addressing the environmental problem, and thus we witnessed the advent of community forestry in Nepal. With support from various donors, the interventions have had a remarkable impact on environmental, social and economic fronts of community forestry.

Four decades down the line, community forestry is still considered relevant, but rather from a broader perspective of climate change adaptation, biodiversity management and other dominant global environmental agendas that have evolved in recent years. However, the fundamental principles of community forestry that have bound the collective action among forest user groups has remained in the shadows. One of the persistent supporters of community forestry in Nepal is the Australian government. Launched in 2013, the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research’s forestry project has mainly focused on contributing to the food security and livelihoods of community forest user groups through research in Kavre, Sindhupalchowk, and Lamjung districts, in pursuit of innovative options to silviculture management as well as have developmental impact through better policy outcomes.

The fundamental question is on whether the legacy of supporting core values and principles of community forestry still continues. Not only would this be important in terms of continuing the legacy, but also in terms of revitalizing one of the well-established local institutions of global reputation. So, community forestry is at a cross-roads of crises both in terms of intertwined problems facing it as well as the continuing support that would be supportive in addressing them.

This article was originally published in Annapurna express on March 19, 2024 (https://theannapurnaexpress.com/story/47999/)
 

 

Study tour of EfD Forest Collaborative participants

Wrapped up a four days’ (20-23 November) study tour of EfD Forest Collaborative participants in Nepal. Participants from Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya visited Nepal to explore community forestry practice in Nepal. The study tour involved a mix of discussions with Nepali policymakers, academics, community forestry advocates and members of forest user groups.  The team led by Prof. Randell Bluffstone from Portland State University, visited community forests in Kavre and met with community forest user groups to discuss ways forests are being managed. They mostly observed how community forests in Nepal operate and had meaningful conversations with the people driving this initiative. Likewise, the participants had insightful discussions with members of FECOFUN, forest officials at the Department of Forests and Soil Conservation as well as the Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation, the Dean of the Institute of Forestry, and researchers.

Policy dialogue on the opportunities and challenges of forest enterprise

Attaining prosperity from forestry is one of the pressing policy priorities in the forestry sector of Nepal. With the new local government system in place, there are ample opportunities to support community forests and local farmers in promoting forest-based enterprises. However, there are still gaps pertinent to the financial, technical, and policy aspects of FBEs in Nepal.

With an aim to develop a common understanding on the issue and identify ways forward to promote FBEs, ForestAction Nepal in support of the Australian Aid, conducted a local government-level policy dialogue on the opportunities and challenges of forest enterprises in Chautara, Sindhupalchok, on October 1, 2023. Diverse stakeholders from local government (wards, municipalities), the Department of Cottage and Small Industries (Gharelu), technicians, researchers, NGO (Forest Action Nepal), furniture entrepreneurs, Lapsi entrepreneurs, media and outreach, etc. were actively engaged to discuss the opportunities, challenges, and ways out for forest enterprise development.

Some of the key takeaway messages from the policy dialogue are as follows:

● Unhealthy international competition should be checked and addressed by our existing trade related policies to create a safe and competitive business environment.

● A single-enterprise registration agency is crucial to avoid tedious process of registration.

● An effective monitoring system and the formation of a separate task team would be crucial to check the operation and overall status of the enterprises registered under them.

● Policy, legal reform for the better governance of the enterprises sector

● A system of laws, rules, processes, and stakeholders, together with their respective roles and norm should be brought together by the business institutional framework to further shape the socioeconomic activities of the entrepreneur.

● Capacity development and skill training to identify opportunities, set goals, and develop strategies to ensure that forest resources are used effectively and efficiently.

● Business Promotion Services to gain the national and international recognition

● Prioritizing on ergonomic aspects by implementing the insurance and workers safety gears while working

 

 

Policy dialogue on “Community institutions and forest-based enterprises: Prospects of transformation”

While the Government of Nepal has set the goal of achieving prosperity from forestry, the country holding 44.74% of forest area demonstrates the prospects of forest based enterprises. Along with the ambition, there are a range of challenges that have been rather discouraged in promoting community-based forest enterprises in Nepal. Community institutions are facing several challenges in the establishment and operation of forest-based enterprises. With the aim to discuss opportunities and challenges in promoting forest-based enterprises and laying out ways forward, ForestAction Nepal, in support from the Australian Government, organized a policy dialogue on “Community institutions and forest-based enterprises: Prospects of transformation” on 6th June 2023. A diverse group of actors from the government, non-government, civil society, private sector, local government among others expressed their views during the event.
Click here to download the event report

7th National Workshop on Community Forestry

The aim of this workshop is to review the five decades of CF, develop a common understanding on its achievements, lessons, challenges and opportunities especially in the changing biophysical and socio-political contexts.

Advancing community forestry in the new era of socio-economic change

Forty years ago, the emergence of community forestry in Nepal proved to be the solution to subsistence livelihood and ecological conservation. Community efforts in restoring the degraded landscape was fundamental in achieving the intended goals. The advent of community forestry in the 1980s witnessed a massive mobilization of communities in reforesting the hills. Back then, the entire orientation of rural communities, and that of foresters and forestry bureaucrats was in favor of promoting community forestry, which gained a global acclamation. Initiated through few handovers, community forestry spread across as a popular policy movement in the country. Gradually, organizations apart from the government responded to the trend by supporting local communities in strengthening the institution. After forty years, apparently, community forestry is at the cross roads where the spirit of the user groups is languishing.

During my visit to one of the community forest user groups in Kavrepalanchowk, I had an interaction with an elderly, perhaps in his early 70s, who was more skeptical about the future of community forest. His persuasion on declining interest of people over forests was evident through growing number of youths leaving the village. Kavre is not an exception to this. Community forests across Nepal has seen passive management, and the socio-environmental foundations based on which community forestry was introduced have observed many changes. The contribution of community forest in socio-economic and ecological changes in Nepal is not debatable. However, Nepal has witnessed several changes in the socio-economic and political context, wherein demographic dynamics, income levels, agricultural practices, and aspirations of the youths have changed substantially. This has largely met with a mismatch between benefits that community forests can deliver versus what local communities expect from it. Foresters, practitioners, and scholars debate on whether the current model of community forestry is still valid and whether it can accommodate the changing preferences of rural communities in the changing socio-economic context of Nepal.

In 1991, Don Gilmour and R.J. Fisher, both Australians, attempted to share their rich insights on community forestry of Nepal in their book entitled ‘Villagers, Forests, and Foresters: The Philosophy, Process, and Practice of Community Forestry in Nepal’. This book was a dynamo that has been keeping the energy flowing among the foresters, academics, forestry officials, and community forestry practitioners. A collaboration between a forester, and an anthropologist provides a pragmatic approach to technical and social issues circumventing community forestry program in Nepal. Back in the 1980s, the authors were working for the Nepal-Australia Community Forestry Program, a major forestry program in Nepal at the time, where any intervention pertinent to community forest would be an experimentation. 30 years down the line, community forestry has witnessed a transformational shift which is largely attributed to the changing socio-economic, and socio-political context of the country.

Achievements and new challenges

Nepal has been globally acknowledged as a pioneer country in showcasing successful practice of community-based resource management through community forestry. The advent of community forestry was viewed as a huge shift in reversing denuded areas and stabilizing fragile mountain slopes. But most importantly, it generated livelihoods and employment to millions of rural populations, where back then, jobs merely existed in urban centers. Today over two million hectares of forests are being managed as community forests by over 22,000 community forest user groups, across the country. As a recent paper by Ojha and Hall entitled ‘Transformation as system innovation: insights from Nepal’s five decades of community forestry development’ shows, Nepal’s community forestry demonstrates a system wide innovation in governance.

With such an expansion and the systemic change which happened in course of four decades, community forestry now faces a multitude of issues in the environmental, social, economic, and political fronts. In a recent webinar, early advocate of community forestry, Dr Don Gilmour stressed that ‘the socio-economic context of community forestry during its inception and now has changed’. I had an important take away message from the webinar – many forestry enthusiasts who have witnessed the long trajectory of community forestry have noted the fact that the socio-economic changes have driven it to a different direction, and thus requires readjustments. In my own experience, I believe there is a need for readjustments in both policy and forest management fronts. In other words, there is a compelling need to revisit and refine community forestry to make it fully attuned to the changing context, and hence would make it more relevant in the future.

A new collaborative assessment to explore revitalization options

In an attempt to pull together the knowledge in assessing the relevance of current modality of community forestry, a collaborative effort of experts, based in Nepal and Australia, started investigating the areas of (re)adjustments in community forests. In doing so, an editorial team led by Dr Naya Sharma Paudel of ForestAction Nepal, convened a group of over 40 experts specializing on diverse aspects of community forestry to work on this collaborative effort of producing a report. The editorial team members are a part of the Australian supported project EnLiFT2 (Enhancing livelihoods from improved forest management in Nepal) and this report is part of its production.

Following thorough review and reiterations with the group of authors, which took almost a year, the editorial team finally produced this report entitled ‘Revitalising community forestry in the changing socio-economic context of Nepal’. With nine chapters written on diverse themes encompassing policy and institutions, biodiversity, climate change, silviculture, enterprise, and gender, this report largely investigates different areas of community forestry that require adjustment. Moreover, it has also made strategic recommendations, that would allow it to adapt in the new context.

In course of my engagement with these authors and experts, I got an impression of having a consensus on at least one aspect – community forestry in Nepal needs revitalization. In other words, the contextual factors that might have worked for community forestry 40 years ago, perhaps may not be valid now. Our societies have evolved and so have the livelihood priorities of people. So certain future direction to drive community forestry has been imperative, and this assessment reinforces the foundation to this new discourse.

Initiating new discourse based on collaborative assessment

Citing its relevance, the Secretary of the Ministry of Forests and Environment affirmed the idea of formally launching the report. Finally, on 15 March 2022, the report was launched during an event in Kathmandu. The report was jointly launched by the secretary of the Ministry and HE Ambassador of Australia to Nepal in the presence of over 35 participants representing various institutions including joint secretaries from the Ministry, Divisional Forest Officers, Under Secretaries, Dean of Institute of Forestry, University Professors, Chair and representatives of FECOFUN, and representatives from NGOs and INGOs. There was an overwhelming appreciation of the collaborative work wherein the report was lauded for being timely and offering a strong basis to framing community forestry policies.

Beyond this, a scholarly attempt of publishing a book on community forestry is underway. An editorial team led by Dr Hemant Ojha from the University of Canberra, is working on a book that would offer critical insights into how community forestry systems can be better governed and managed in the light of changing contexts and new drivers impacting forest and people relationship in the country. This book will be unique in the sense that it would bring high quality research and deeply engaged experiential reflections of those involved in promoting community forestry at different stages of its evolution in Nepal.

Mr. Karki is a researcher at ForestAction Nepal.