This paper provides a brief overview of community forestry in Nepal, especially highlighting the main achievements, challenges and the contribution that Nepal's Community Forestry Programme has made to improve people's livelihoods and forest conditions.

1. The Context: Nepal's Community forestry

Community forestry is most accurately and usefully understood as an umbrella term denoting a wide range of activities which link rural people with forests, trees, and the products and benefits to be derived from them. Gilmour and Fisher (1991) define community forestry in terms of control and management of forest resources by the rural people who use them especially for domestic purposes and as an integral part of their farming systems. Since community forestry constitutes both social and biophysical elements, they both are equally important. The "resource" can be managed effectively with a clear understanding of forest management principles and knowledge of natural system, and "social" part can be dealt with a clear understanding of a society and their relationships with the resource and institutions related to it.

The way community forestry approach used to be defined and interpreted in Nepal up until late 70s, suggests that community forestry implies 'community-resource' relations, commonly known as 'indigenous system of forest management' (see Fisher 1989), which was widespread in Nepal's hills. During 80s and beginning of 90s, nevertheless community forestry was further conceptualized and internalized, new policy framework was crafted (HMGN, 1988), legal instruments have been in place (HMGN, 1995), various processes, methods and tools have been developed, modified, re-modified and experience gained. During this period, community forestry was understood and recognized as government's priority programme, for which the role of forest bureaucracy in the hills changed from policing to facilitating leading to the evolution of community-resource relations towards a triangular interface among community, resource and government bureaucracy.

In the late 90s, with the changing political and policy context, community forestry is being understood and conceptualized in terms of stakeholders relationship because there has not only been increasing trend of FUGs, tremendous number and types of stakeholders and service providing agencies and organizations, with diverse interests and influence have emerged and grown. The pattern of interactions among these agencies with FUGs and government organisations in fact influence each other's action, their own governance system, gender equity issues, and ultimately to the way how resource is managed and utilized, how the management plans, strategies and programmes are designed and implemented, how negotiation takes place and conflicts are resolved for effective forest management in order to achieve the desired outcomes at people's livelihoods and resource condition level. This is the context within which community forestry in Nepal is growing and always progressing. It is not like as it was in the past and it will not be in the future as it is now, therefore community forestry should be defined, redefined and understood in a dynamic way.

The present form of Nepal's community forestry is guided by the Forest Act of 1993, Forest Regulations of 1995, and the Operational Guidelines of 1995. These legal instruments have legitimized the concept of Community Forest User Group (CFUG) as an independent, autonomous and self-governing institution responsible to protect, manage and use any patch of national forest with a defined forest boundary and user group members. CFUGs are to be formed democratically and registered at the District Forest Office (DFO), with CFUG Constitution, which defines the rights of the users to a particular forest. The forest is handed over to the community once the respective members through a number of consultative meetings and processes prepares the Operational Plan (OP), a forest working plan, and submits it to the District Forest Officer (DFO) for approval. The plan has to be countersigned by the Chairperson of the CFUG. The general assembly of the CFUG is the supreme body to finalize the plan before it is submitted to the DFO for its approval. The plan is generally implemented by an executive committee nominated by the general assembly. The successful implementation of the plan depend more on the awareness level of the community members and their participation in the process of the preparation of group constitution and the Operational plan together with the level of support that various agencies such as DFO, user group federation, NGOs, civil society organizations and local government and concerned stakeholders provide, and the relationship among themselves in supporting CFUGs.

2. Achievements and contribution

There are now around 12,000 Forest User Groups (FUGs) formed in Nepal during the period of 14 years with nearly 1.2 million household members, which account approximately 20% of the country's population who have taken over responsibility to manage about 850,000 ha forest areas, nearly 16% of the total forest land of the country (DOF, 2002). At the moment in Nepal, average of two FUGs are being formed every day and they are given authority and responsibility to manage and use the national forest resources.

Community forestry has contributed mainly to the improvement of forest condition and people's livelihoods in three ways namely;
Ø Capital formation in rural communities;
Ø Policy and governance reform of various organizations and agencies; and
Ø Contribution in the process of community empowerment and social change.

2.1 Capital formation in rural communities and its flow

Community forestry has become a means to increase natural, social, human, financial, and to some extent the physical capital of community forest users.

2.1.1 Natural capital
Community forests handed-over to community are natural capital. Evidences show that there are positive changes in both forest condition and the availability of forest products, with a concurrent reduction in the time spent for collecting forest products. Thousands of FUGs have planted and protected denuded hills, carried out forest management and silvicultural operations, utilized and marketed various forest products for their livelihoods.

2.1.2 Social capital
It is reported that the community forestry process has increased social cohesion, which has enhanced social capital of those who have been powerless, left in isolation and excluded from mainstream social and political processes.

2.1.3 Human capital
Since the inception of the Community Forestry Programme a number of trainings, workshops and exposure visits have been conducted for a number of organisations and individuals at community level, government and non government organization level that has increased knowledge and skill related to forest silviculture, community development, organisational management and leadership development, all of which are basically human capital.

2.1.4 Financial capital
The group fund generated from the sale of forest products, levies and outside grants are the financial capital created through community forestry. It is reported that there is a balance of about of 100 million Rupees among 12,000 FUGs in the country (CFD, 2002). This amount is almost equivalent to government's annual forestry development budget allocated to all districts. There are numerous examples where many of these FUGs have established low interest credit scheme as well as grants to poorest household members from the FUG fund.

2.1.5 Physical capital
Numerous FUGs have carried out many community development activities on their own. Construction of village trails, small bridges, community building, schools and temples are the good examples of physical capital created through community forestry programme.

2.2 Governance reform

Through Community Forestry, re-orientation of Forest Department staff to move away from their traditional role of policing to a role of facilitator and advisors has been possible. As a result, changes in attitudes and behaviour of many government staff (mainly Forest Department staff) have been possible. Community forestry is the only one national programme in the country by which creation of thousands of local institutions at community level (i.e. FUGs) and continuously building their capacity as viable local institutions has been possible. In addition, nested enterprises such as user group networks and Federation of Forest User Groups have been established to safeguard the rights and responsibility of forest users. Additional service providers such as NGOs, local bodies, private sector agencies have emerged. These institutions have started to collaborate and work together.

Government officials and staff, service provider agencies, stakeholders and community members are becoming increasingly aware of equity issues. All stakeholders involved in community forestry have begun to realize the need for the active participation of marginalized groups in all stages of project planning, implementation and monitoring, since their involvement will have direct effects on forest systems and on poor peoples' well being. Hence, more benefits have started to flow to the poorest, which are the most in need. Subsequently, as their roles as forest managers begin to increase and be valued, the impact on forest systems is increasingly positive.

Many stakeholders have begun to work collaboratively and collectively, by which exchange of information has taken place. Through the interaction process, power and positions are being negotiated and redefined. All interested parties are realizing increasingly better opportunities to be engaged in decision-making processes. Mutual trust, accountability and transparency have begun to increase.

There is an increasing recognition of the need to enable pro-poor policies. Ground level realities have started to feed into the different layers of governance during the process of policy revisions through the more consultative processes. Policy intentions are more or less translated into practice by innovative officials and in collaboration with NGOs and other stakeholders. Participatory bottom-up planning process has begun to institutionalized especially in annual and periodic plan preparation. There has been realization among some forestry officials on the importance of bi-directional flow of information from community level to the central level that have to be taken place vertically and horizontally. Civil society actors have started to demand good forest governance (2) to be established in all levels (from FUGs to forestry administration and national government).

2.3 Community empowerment and social change

As noted above, community forestry has become a vehicle in bringing change in social processes empowering poor and disadvantaged members of the community. In some FUGs awareness is raised among disadvantaged and marginalised members of the group in matters related to inequality, social injustice and their exclusion from social and political processes including the benefits from mainstream development. It is reported (3) that in some cases community forestry has made significant contribution in increasing the participation of some marginalized sections of the community. In some FUGs, marginalized users' (including women's) representation has increased in the users' committees and many of them have begun to develop an increased voice in meetings and assemblies. They have also begun to demand services from government, other service delivery agencies and powerful members of FUGs.

3. Supportive factors for community forestry

There are many supportive factors that enable Nepal's community forestry to promote, develop and scale-up in the whole country. Below are some examples.

· There is enabling policy that recognizes community forestry as the first priority programme of the forestry sector. Community forestry legislation is in place that legitimizes the rights of the user groups. All 12,000 FUGs have their own constitution and Operational Plan that provide legal basis for user group to protect, use, harvest and market the forest products on their own.

· In addition to the government organizations, agencies, officials and staff, there are various service providing organizations including CFUG federations, NGOs, local bodies bilateral projects, and which are emerging and expanding their roles and may are willing to further support the community forestry programme to make it more effective to address the challenges and issues, which will be highlighted later in this article.

· There are many trained human resources within and outside government system. Financial resources and additional expertise offered by donor communities and INGOs have helped to find the ways and means for sustainable forest management and rural livelihoods. Ministry and Department of Forests are the one of the oldest and established government institutions with good infra-structure, tremendous amount of knowledge and skilled manpower and forest resource base of about 40% of the total land area of the country. Many of the CFUGs that have been established thorough out the country are innovative and functioning well not only in managing the forests but also have become good vehicle of rural development and most of these groups have been managing forest resources in a much better way than the government organizations.

· The presence of donor communities who are engaged in building capacity of stakeholders and government agencies together with the work of some international research organizations in generating knowledge have provided Nepal some opportunities to innovate, experiment and learn for workable approaches, methods and tools to promote community forestry.

4. Issues and challenges in community forestry

Despite achievements and contribution mentioned above that community forestry has made in Nepal, there are many unresolved issues and challenges in all areas of capital as well as governance. Although CFUGs have been successful in terms of their institutional capacity to get people organized and form capital at group level, perhaps the most critical in terms of livelihoods and the relatively weak generation of financial capital for the forest dependent poor and women. While trends towards resource degradation have been arrested and in many cases forest cover is reported to be improved (see NUKCFP, 2000), the livelihoods of the local forest dependent communities, particularly the poor and disadvantaged, have not improved as expected. In worst cases, in fact, the implementation of CF policy has inflicted added costs to the poor, such as reduced access to forest products and forced allocation of household resources for communal forest management with insecurity over the benefits.
Furthermore, one of the major challenges underpinning the lack of financial capital for the poorest of forest users, relates to low social capital in FUGs, as well as FUG institutional arrangements and decision-making processes that reinforce those trends. Multiple stakeholders with differences in 'power' speak, voice and be heard differently. The poorest are the ones who are suffered the most since they cannot afford to participate and hardly speak, are rarely heard and benefit from community forestry. Given the unequal social structure in terms of class, caste, gender and regional disparity, there is unequal access to decision-making, to opportunities, to contribute and to benefits. Although involvement of marginalized people in community forestry with their perceptions and actions have direct impacts on forest systems and their livelihoods, marginalized groups in multi-stakeholder settings have often been excluded and under-valued, with the perception that they have less ability to make and act on decisions. As a result, poor peoples' access to resources has been reduced, with consequent negative impacts on their livelihoods and on the condition of government forests in neighboring areas of community forests. Clearly this situation, intransparent decision-making and fund management reflect weak FUG level governance in many cases.

Furthermore, it has been increasingly recognized that inequitable distribution of benefits, combined with uneven sense of ownership and motivation in the FUGs, and lack of clear options, as well as technical knowledge (and some policy implementation constraints) have resulted in relatively 'passive' managements of forests. While forests have been generally well protected, it seems increasingly likely that the majority of FUGs are not utilizing their forests to their full potential in terms of income generation. Leadership positions on community forest user groups and among other stakeholders are typically captured by power elites, and their management systems are somewhat rigid and top-down. Since they have weak monitoring systems, they make decisions without adequate information and even if they have information available, they are slow to make the best use of the new information for making decisions. This also reflects a lack of human capital in terms of knowledge and skills (and incentives) to undertake successful participatory decision-making in highly heterogeneous environments, as well as to generate and apply necessary forestry and institutional knowledge.

Despite good policy framework in place, in many occasions, policy formulation and reformulation processes, from CFUG to different levels of governance, are less consultative and interactive, leading to inequitable outcomes. This is further complicated by limited monitoring practices at all different levels and across all institutions. National policies are slow to respond to change, and various types of inputs and services needed in communities, and implementation often distorts policy intentions. These reflect some gaps in human capital (knowledge, skills and incentives for enhancing the speed of effective feedback to and responses of policy), as well as related planning processes and governance issues (including effective two way communication between various levels of stakeholders).

5. Conclusion

Nepal's forest policy provides an environment to practice and learn from community forestry and many more have been achieved in terms of capital formation and its flow, governance reforms and community empowerment. However there are many challenges related to gender and equity, livelihoods and forest sustainability. Nepal's community forestry has proved that communities are able to protect, manage and utilize forest resource sustainably. Community forestry approach is therefore a source of inspiration to all of us working for sustainable forest management and users' rights. Nevertheless further innovation, reflection and modification in community forestry is needed according to local context to address the social issues such as gender and equity.

NOTES:

1. Project Manager, Nepal Swiss Community Forestry Project, a bilateral project being implemented in the three hill districts of Nepal. Some part of this paper is being drawn from the paper presented in the Regional Workshop on Adaptive Collaborative Management Sept 26-27, 2002, Bangkok.

2. Rule of law; compliance of rules and decisions; transparency; accountability; decentralization and devolution of power and authority; defined roles and responsibilities; participatory decision making; gender sensitivity, equity, representation and poser balance; bi-directional flow of information horizontally and vertically are perceived to be some of the indicators of good governance (RECOFTC, 2002, Regional Workshop on Good Forest Governance).

3. See for example, Trend and Impact of Community Forestry in Dhaulagiri Hills. NUKCFP, Baglung 2000.

REFERENCES:

CFD (2002) Database of the Community Forest Users Groups (FUG) in Nepal. Community Forestry Division (CFD), Department of Forests, Nepal.

DOF (2002) Community Forestry Programme in Nepal (Samudayik Van Vikas Karyakram) in Our Forests (Hamro Van). Annual Progress Report of the Department of Forests, Kathamdnu, Nepal.

Gilmour, D.A. and R.J. Fisher (1991) Villagers, Forest and Foresters: The Philosophy, Process and Practice of Community Forestry in Nepal Kathmandu: Sahayogi Press.

Fisher, R.J. (1989) Indigenous System of Common Property Forest Management in Nepal. Working Paper No 18. Honolulu, Hawaii: Environment and Policy Institute, East-West Centre.

HMGN (1988) "Master Plan for the Forestry Sector, Nepal: Main Report". Kathmandu: MOFSC.

HMGN (1995) "The Forest Act 1993 and the Forest Regulations 1995: An Official Translation by the Law Books Management Board". Kathmandu: FDP/USAID/HMGN.

NUKCFP (2000) Trend and Impact of Community Forestry in Nepal's Dhaulagiri Hills. Nepal UK Community Forestry Poject, Baglung, Nepal.

RECOFTC (2002) Regional Workshop on Good Forest Governance, June 2002, Bali, Indonesia.