Nepal

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Three species of yews Taxus contorta Griff., Taxus mairei (Lemée & Lév.) S.Y. Hu ex T.S. Liu and Taxus wallichiana Zucc. distributed in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region have been commercially exploited in recent decades to extract an anticancer chemotherapeutic drug 'Taxol'.

Two leasehold forestry case studies reveal potential limitations in the poverty alleviation potential of Nepal’s leasehold forestry program. First, even though the program is targeted toward the poorest, non-poor households can find opportunities to enter leasehold forest user groups.

Community forests in Nepal are organized by government foresters, who enroll local forest resource users into Community Forest User Groups (CFUG). These identified users become the ‘community’ in community forestry. Because these users are defined by their relationship to forest resources, they appear to escape some of the problems associated with myths about community.

Community forestry in Nepal vests rights of access, use, exclusion, and management of national forestland to local user groups. There is strong potential for community forests to serve as the basis for improving the quality of life and the status of livelihoods in rural Nepal while conserving forest resources.