Nepal

Nepal is one of the first countries in the world to include community forest management in the national forestry policy.

This confers authority to local communities to manage forest resources as forest user groups of an autonomous institution.

The Multi-Stakeholder Forestry Programme is the product of the first multistakeholder design process to be undertaken in Nepal’s forestry sector.

GODAVARI, Nepal, Nov 21, 2011 (IPS) - Nepal’s joint forest management system has taken such deep roots that the country’s prolonged political instability has had little effect on it.

"We’re doing well anyway," Ganesh Bahadur Silwal, 65, general secretary of the Godavari community forestry group, tells an international audience seated in an arc around him in a concrete hall in the scenic Godavari valley, 14 km southeast of Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital.

While a number of researchers and organizations in the US and internationally have highlighted the potential impacts of mitigation efforts on tenure, there remains minimal information and best practice on how to practically address these issues at the field level.

KATHMANDU, Jul 4, 2011 (IPS) - When Bina Tamang was told that she could earn money by not felling trees in the tiny forest that serves as the source of fuel and fodder for 65 families in her area, the 27-year-old was incredulous.

That was two years ago. In June, when Tamang was informed that she and over 100 other groups like hers, that have been sharing forests as community property, had been awarded cash incentives worth 95,000 US dollars disbelief gave way to joy.