As the country is heading towards major restructuring of political system and the state, I wonder if it is also a time to do fundamental rethinking of forestry sector in Nepal. As many would agree, democratic values and practices are important not only in political field, but also in all aspects of social and political life. This means Forestry field also deserves this attention. So should we initiate debate of transformation in forestry field at this time? I think this is a right time, assuming there will be an announcement of constituent assembly very soon. Since forestry sector, together with agriculture, is still the backbone of livelihoods of majority of the people, issues of democratization and inclusive governance in this sector are no less important than political democracy.

I believe that democratization at the fundamental level involves constitution/enactment of relations of power with consent from all affected. I recently reviewed some aspects of Deliberative Democracy theories, which emphasize that only those relations of power are considered democratically legitimate that are constituted through open/unconstrained deliberation among all concerned as participants[1]. Forestry sector is ordered/structured through a complex network of power relations among diverse actors, constituted through particular historical, cultural and political processes. These relations are mentally embedded, and are carried over without much reflection and sometimes even an awareness of internalized ideologies and frames of thinking (or doxa)[2]. Just as monarchy is being questioned in Nepal and hopefully the upcoming constituent assembly will provide opportunity to people to reconstitute power relations between people, army, monarchy, political leaders and elected institutions, in the same way there are several lines historically shaped relations of power in forestry sector which need to reconstituted through democratic deliberation. Key issues include:

Relations between forest technocrats and people: generally there is a strong belief among forest technocrats and ordinary people that government forest officials are the "haakim" of the people, rather than facilitators/"servants" of people. Although there has been some change after the promotion of community forestry in Nepal, this deeply held cultural legacy of haakim has yet to be fully transformed. Indeed, this culture continues to underpin the top-down, technocratic, and non-participatory processes of policy making, program development and practice[3] . Forestry profession, which largely rests on the overlapping interface between scientific and bureaucratic authority, has yet to be democratized fully in practice. Control of forest technocrats by elected ministers provide only a thin and indeed inadequate view of democracy, as this denies opportunity to people to question and raise voice on policies, regulations and programs in the forestry sector. Many a time, when a group of people affected by a policy go and talk to forest officials on the ground, they are told that the decisions are made at “mathi” (elected ministers between 1991-2002), and that they (officials) are there simply to implement what has already been decided. Decisions are thus imposed from the top, and affected people get hardly any opportunity to voice their concerns. Terai forest policy of 2000 is a vivid example, which was imposed from the top, affecting millions of people living in the Terai, but without opportunity to voice their concerns.

Official knowledge is the only authentic knowledge - I have found occasions where the work of a competent non-government forest ranger (providing support in community forestry Operational Plan development) being "checked/monitored" by "official" forest guards, if not "official" ranger. There are even cases that science has been traded for bribes (forest inventory data manipulation cases in some Terai community forests). Historically, forestry science has been over-bureaucratized. Unlike medical science, where a private doctor clinic can have equal chance of being recognized as legitimate knowledge, forestry knowledge has remained as bureaucratic monopoly. This means citizens are forced to accept knowledge despite its undemocratic orientation and limited usefulness. Here is an example of how bureaucratic scientific practice undermines the possibility deliberative construction of decisions that fit the local forest users:

In a CFUG with a pole stage Sal (Shorea robusta) forest, foresters advised the group to undertake thinning so that the Sal trees would grow faster. The group is close to Kathmandu valley, about 30km to the southwest in Dhading district. Because of easy road access to Kathmandu valley, many of the smallholder farmers in the area have started to cultivate vegetables as cash crops, such as beans, cucumber and others, which need small supporting sticks. Before a CFUG was organized, the forest was de facto open access and the farmers could collect sticks for their vegetables without any restrictions. But after the establishment of the CFUG, the local leaders and the technical forestry staff  developed a forest management plan which prescribes clearing all bushes in the Sal forest. When the bushes were cleared, the forest became a clean monoculture of Sal trees as per the wishes of the local elites and the forest officials. But the majority of the land poor farmers who were trying to maximize  production through cash crops had no supply of small sticks from the forest. On average, each household needs about 1000 sticks per year, which means that the forest could have better remained as bushy and shrubby for them but since they could not exercise their voice in the decision-making and planning, now they have no alternative but to convert the bushy forest to a Sal monoculture[4].

Strong sense of hierarchy and lack of democratic communication within forest bureaucracy/among foresters – By and large, relations of communication within foresters is not egalitarian – dai/bhai culture is well known, and a bhai is not supposed to argue strongly against the view of Dai[5]. In several meetings I observed among forest officials of different ranks, I have found the high rank officials capturing the space for discussion, and sometimes even intimidating the juniors for their “inaccurate” views, when the latter attempts to participate. In one big gathering, a forest secretary insulted and stopped a DFO in the middle making a formal presentation on the field realities, simply because the DFO had not worn proper shoes[6]. It is commonly held that once you are Haakim, you know everything from policy to program, and then what you need to do is just instruct the juniors. There is no culture of learning from the juniors, as seniors think that if they accept views of juniors, the latter will disobey the former (seniors say – juniors lai dherai manyata diyo bhane tauka ma teckchhan). In addition to bureaucracy, this culture is equally pervasive in all civil society as well.

Structure of forest ministry and administration of forest lands in the country. The current structure and staffing was informed by protectionist/preservationist concepts of the sixties. “Forest guards”, “armed forest guards”, “judicial power and responsibilities of technical staff” are some of the examples which indicate the protectionist nature of the organization. Despite participatory turn of governance (such as though community forestry, collaborative forestry, buffer zone management etc), the fundamental structure of the Ministry remains the same, which anbles bureaucratic regulation of forest governance, rather than democratic governance. National park management has always been centralized, with little political power shared with local people. The idea of buffer zone indeed extends bureaucratic control outside of the park (despite sharing incomes). While small patches of forest are brought under the control of local communities through forest user groups (under community forestry), little has been done to explore democratic and equitable institutions for the management of block forest areas such as the remaining Terai forests and even national parks. In fact, the current situation of mis-management is the preferred choice of bureaucrats and powerful local elites, who resist any democratic governance moves. The idea of “collaborative forest management” has indeed been a strategic instrument of bureaucratic extension rather than genuine democratization of forest governance.  In the recent years, people and their leaders have been busy with fundamental political struggles, and have had little time to discuss issues of forest governance. The forestry mentality (doxa) still considers political involvement as un-necessary interference[7], and very few forestry scholars advocate democratic agenda in forestry sector in fundamental sense.

In this brief discussion note, I am not blaming those directly engaged in such activities, but think that these are fundamental cultural issues of forest governance and democracy in Nepal. As I outlined in the beginning, I approach such practices as being enacted through internalized doxa rather than always calculated choices of conscious human agency. While some may argue that such cases are "anecdotal", I would rather contend that this exemplifies enduring problems of democratization within forestry circles[8]. I also admit that there are a range of innovations coming up but these are still limited to specific individuals or groups.

References Cited

• BOURDIEU, P. 1998. Practical Reason: On The theory of Action. Polity, Cambridge.
• COHEN, J. 1997. Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy.  In: J. Bohman and W. Rehg (eds), Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics. The MIT Press, Massachusetts and London: 67-91.
• ELSTER, J. 1997. The Market and the Forum: Three Varieties of Political Theory.  In: J. Bohman and W. Rehg (eds), Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics. The MIT Press, Massachusetts and London: 3-33.
• FISCHER, F. 1998.  Beyond Empiricism: Policy Inquiry and Post Posivist Perspective. Policy Studies 26(1): 129-146.
• GAUTAM, K. H. In Press.  Forestry, politicians and power--perspectives from Nepal's forest policy.  In Press, Corrected Proof.
• HABERMAS, J. 1996. Between Facts and Norms - Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. MIT Press, Masachusetts.
• OJHA, H. 2006.  The Deliberative Scfientist - Democratizing Scfientific Practice in Environmental Management. Journal Manuscript - not for citation.
• OJHA, H., J. CAMERON, K. PAUDEL and C. MCDOUGALL. 2005. Deliberative Governance: Concepts and Issues for Discussion. ForestAction Nepal.
• OJHA, H., N. TIMSINA, D. KHANAL and J. CAMERON. 2006.  Deliberation in Environmental Governance - The Case of Forest Policy Making in Nepal. Geoforum (under review).
• POKHAREL, B. and H. OJHA. 2005. Community Forestry in Nepal: A Platform for Public Deliberation or Technocratic Hegemony? International Union for Forestry research Conference Brisbane.
• POKHAREL, B. K. 1997. Foresters and Villagers in Contention and Compact. School of Development Studies. University of East Anglia,  Norwich. PhD Thesis.
• PRADHAN, R. 1996. Chakari, Karma and Ke Garne. The Kathmandu Post Kathmandu.