Community Forestry and Livelihoods of the Poor: A Political Ecology of Forest Resource Scarcities

There is wider issue that why the poor become victims not only of environmental degradation but also from environmental improvements is central in community forestry programme. Based on the study of three community forestry user groups of Dhankuta district of eastern development region of Nepal I argue that there is social heterogeneity and resource diversity in the groups that has been given less attention in the programme. Also, there is differentiation of resource endowments and entitlements among different categories of the groups. While the poor are weak in the resource endowment, they have less capacity to transform the forest resources into their sale and use right that can generate further livelihoods resources. Additionally, there are different types and forms of institutions which are not only improving the access of people but also some of these institutions control the access and rights of the poor and excluded categories of the user groups. And, there are different resource priorities of the users based on their social and economic position but the management priority of the community forestry in some case do harmony and in most case it contradict with the resource priority of the poor.