Abstract

Community forestry (CF) is seen as an important tool for facilitating sustainable forest management; however, barriers often greatly inhibit CF’s ability to deliver on its full potential. The aim of this chapter is to examine one of the barriers to CF in Nepal. The barrier consists of regulations that greatly restrict a community’s ability to make a living from timber in its forests. An analysis of existing policies was conducted to identify the regulatory requirements placed on communities. An expert workshop was held in Kathmandu, and fieldwork was conducted in two CF sites to examine the impact of the regulations on communities. The findings show that the regulations place a hefty burden not only on the communities but also on government officials tasked with enforcing them. Additionally, the regulations actually facilitate illegal behaviour by both deterring legal logging and encouraging payment of bribes. The findings highlight the need for revising the regulatory framework to further enable communities to sustainably manage their forests.

Keywords

Nepal, community forestry, regulations, regulatory barriers, livelihoods

Published in

IUFRO world series / International Union of Forestry Research Organizations
2014, number: 32, pages: 275-284
Title: Forests under pressure: local responses to global issues
ISBN: 978-3-902762-30-6
Publisher: IUFRO

Associated SLU-program

Forest


UKÄ Subject classification

Social Sciences Interdisciplinary


Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/66159