This report identifies the challenges for Nepal’s community forestry in responding to the changing livelihoods and emerging market opportunities. Whilst community forestry has been regarded as a radical programme with its early inception during the 1980s, it has not been adequately adaptive to the changing contexts of the recent years. Instead, the state has maintained control over the productive forests and lands in order to secure revenue and to meet the vested interests of the ruling elites. Although about 21% of forests have been handed over to local communities as community forests, many of the crucial rights are still held by the state’s agencies. This is especially true for those forests that are commercially valuable. Additionally, while enhancing forests’ contribution to poverty reduction has become a major development in forestry discourse, weak tenure especially in the context of emerging market opportunities is found to be the major inhibiting factor.
The socio-ecological and market contexts that were present when community forestry was first introduced were sharply different from what they are today. For example, farmers used to practice traditional agriculture and relied heavily on forests for various farm inputs and household consumption. Meanwhile heavy deforestation and environmental degradation seriously threatened rural livelihoods and the landscape. In this context, arresting deforestation and supplying forest products for subsistence use were the major concerns. Community forestry was introduced to meet these objectives through the involvement of the local communities in forest protection and use. Consequently, the programme became instrumental in halting deforestation and regeneration of forests during the last three decades. There have been enormous changes in the fabric of Nepal’s rural society since the introduction of community forestry three decades ago. The political movement of 1990, a decade long violent conflict, and the people’s movement in 2006 have all contributed to political transformation including the demolition of the century long monarchy. An increased civic consciousness of their/human rights led to the resurgence of marginalised groups such as ethnic minorities, indigenous people, Dalits and women seeking their legitimate stake in the state affairs, rights over resources, and the end to a generation long subjugation and marginalisation. Communities, even in the rural remote areas, are now linked to the wider national society through multiple political and social connections such as political parties, labour unions, development NGOs, media and people’s organisations.
These socio-political changes have been coupled with changing rural livelihoods and increased market interface. Traditional farming is moving away from subsistence towards improved farming that relies more on the market for various inputs and also for selling the farm produce. Thanks to the increased demand on the international labour market, millions of youths have temporarily migrated to foreign countries. As a result, remittances have become a major contributor to the earning/income of thousands of families and the national economy. With an increasing market intervention in the rural areas along with the liberal economy adopted by the state, the rural economy has become monetised so that families need more cash for food, and other social services such as health and education. In the meantime, the market value for several forest products has increased and opportunities for commercialisation of many new products have emerged.
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