Dear Mr Bohara,
Minister for Forest and Soil Conservation, Nepal
I am writing this letter to you as an independent forest governance researcher and also as a citizen of Nepal concerned with forest, environment and democracy. While I certainly appreciate your efforts that you have been putting since you assumed the office to bring changes in the forestry sector, I clearly see gaps in your approach and hence would like to draw your attention to fundamental questions of forest governance in Nepal. I am not prescribing any blue print solutions or recipe but would like to share some broad thoughts and strategies, which require going beyond the close bureaucratic circles and political coterie. I believe we can really make a difference through mobilising all kinds of ideas, power, resources, assets and potentials to address the problems of forest governance we are facing in Nepal.
Causalities from bad forest governance
Let me start with the tragic event of Kailali recently. As you may agree, the human casualties in Kailali resulting from the conflict between land and forest have drawn widespread concerns. In fact, such conflict is not new in the recent years. We had even more serious cases in the higher Hiumalyan region of Gorkha and Manang a few months back, where several people were killed when there was a conflict over high value Yarsha Gumba between the two villages, or rather village development committees and districts created not by local people, but by the national governments.
We need to recognize that death casualties are only the worst, culminating points of deteriorating governance of forest and land resource sector in Nepal. Many other problems actually go unnoticed, or are in fact hidden from the public view. Deforestation and timber smuggling in the Terai, for instance, is a case in point, which continues to be ignored, partly because this is itself a desired form of industry for some of those who have power. The issue of licensing Chitwan hotels have come to the fore for sometime, and it is clear by now that there are very powerful players around appropriating private benefits from public resources. The governance debate has virtually remained a close circle negotiation even when there is some pre-orchestrated window of public scrutiny.
Good intention, bad decision
It is good to know that the government, and the Ministry of Forest in particular, has shown some degree of concern to the issue of climate change. But again the actual decisions it has taken has faced questions of legitimacy. The decision in the Everest base camp has also made some decisions about conservation of natural resources. There is already a negative reaction from the civil society to the cabinet decision on expanding protected areas in Nepal (as is evident in the Circulation of Federation of Community Forestry Users, Nepal, or FECOFUN). I think here again the government has made mistake thorough making top down decisions.
Clearly, nobody should go against conservation and sustainability. But at the same time, the urgency of conservation should not be taken as a means to make top down decisions that affect thousands of people and their livelihoods. We have already moving towards bottom up approach to conservation, where local and indigenous people have come to voice their concerns and hence own and contribute to the conservation process. I think there is no need for you to be unpopular by making hasty decisions, often advocated by the hard liner conservationist organizations. I think the Forest Ministry should be cautious of the overt and covert ways through which conservation fundamentalists exert influence on the government decisions.
Fundamental Issues
Now if we look at these and many other similar governance problems in the forestry sector, we find two common fundamental issues.
First, decisions are made by authorities, without sufficient analysis of situations and consequences, and without engaging the affected citizen groups and local communities. The decisions are framed in closed bureaucratic circles where technocratic, top-down, and "we know the best" mind sets dominate. Such mindsets are usually nurtured and reinforced by development aid and the ideology of western development and environmentalism.
Second, a situation of indecision is created, to support the status quo that actually create significant benefits to decision (non-)makers and power holders. It is a common belief in Nepal (and some studies also support) that timber smuggling and related corruption is a preferred governance arrangement to those who are in power. Another situation of indecision, as is reflected in the case of Yarsha gumba conflict in Manang is about the ignorance of the government to (re)-define property rights of various districts, villages, households surrounding the resource. The boundaries of village development committee and district development committee imposed by central government have actually triggered the conflict. Even the well applauded Master Plan for the Forestry Sector (MPFS) did not spell out how resource ownership should be shared in such situations, and the policy makers have always remained silent about such grave tenure confusion, which occasionally erupt with violence and human casualties. The questions emerging from this situation are - How much cost of casualties is enough to force the correction of public policy? Should not we be serious about such critical policy gaps? Or should we just blame local squatters, communities and field officials for their illegal, ineffective behaviors? I think the central policy makers cannot skip the ultimate political accountability obligation.
Direction: no prescription but genuine dialogue
All this reflections lead to conclusion that it is now time to proactively think of holding serious dialogues and deliberations at different levels over the questions: how forest and land resources can and should be governed, and how benefits should be distributed. Currently, with the expiry of the MPFS, there is a need for developing a new forest sector strategy where stakeholders and right holders agree on a broad framework of forest governance. We need to redefine the role of state and government in the forestry sector in the changing context. We are not in the 70s where there were no formally recognized community groups in forestry, not any NGOs working in the forestry sector. We are entering 2010 with the whole range of civic associations, think tanks, research groups, private service providers, forestry business groups, and a huge repertoire of experience on how we can build intuitions and manage resources equitably. We need to harness these potentials and energy for addressing the forest sector challenges.
There are good examples of cooperation between civil society and government in forestry governance, but there are always some narrow interests within the both circles that tend to undermine constructive engagement. So Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation should take leadership to initiative processes of dialogue with multiple stakeholders to develop common vision and strategy for the forest sector in Nepal. I do not want to elect myself to an expert to make a list of recommendations here, but would humbly suggest the Ministry to come out, seek cooperation and create opportunities for dialogue on the crucial question of forest governance, and before we lose too much in terms of human life, forest resource and economic opportunities.
Dec 9, 2009
Hemant R Ojha, PhD
Khotang (currently in Kathmandu)
Nepal
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