Community Forest

Community forest (CF) is forest protected, managed and utilized by local forest user groups. In other words, a forest area handed over to a group of people entrusted to manage, use and protect under the provision of the Forest Act, 2049 and Forest Regulation, 2051.

Forest User Group: A group of local forest users organized together as per the Forest Act to protect, manage and use the forest resources of one or more areas.

This programme through the department of forests makes CF a reality for rural communities. It is not new to Nepal and was passed by Govt. of Nepal in 1978. Initial efforts were plantation oriented and large numbers of nurseries were sponsored. Forest decisions were made by administrative units of local govt. without consulting the local communities. To be CF, there should be an constitution and operational plan prepared by local user groups by the help of forest technician, who may be from District Forest Office or any other I/NGOs. There should not be bias on forest resources’ uses for all the users and the names of traditional users left.

Main objective

To achieve sustainable management of forest resources by converting accessible national forests into community forests on a phase wise manner.

Strategy

Handing over of accessible forest areas as CFs to the Forest User Groups (FUGs) for proper management and utilization of forest resources.

A good CF has a good decision making criteria giving priority on gender and discriminated castes and classes. There should be transparent income-expenditure registers maintained by CF User Committee able to be shown everywhere and everyone.

Strength of CF Development Program

• An autonomous and independent institution by laws
• Participatory democratic program
• Legally recognized Forest Users with legal satus
• Responsibility bestowed upon the CFUGs
• Freedom to use forest products independently within the framework of constitution and the forest operational plan
• Provision of the use of CFUGs’ fund for community forestry development and rural development including community development
• No tax on using forest products as the other national property
• Gender and discriminated castes and classes have opportunities to uplift their socio-economic status in the society

Steps of Community Forest handover

1. Investigation of forests and forest dependent communities
2. Written application received by DFO
3. Help community by DFO form a group
4. Help the communities prepare a consensus based UG Constitution and OP
5. Forests formally handed over
6. OP and Constitution approved by DFO
7. OP implemented