This article examines the perception of the Bhotiya tribal community on the use and conservation of natural resources in Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve (NDBR), north-western Himalaya in India with an objective of identifying the bottlenecks in the sustainable management of forest resources of NDBR through people's participation. Despite, 85% of the respondents supporting the concept of conservation of forest resources, management decisions such as ban on mountaineering activities by creation of the Nanda Devi National Park (NDNP) in 1982 and NDBR in 1988, developed negative attitude among local people towards NDBR management, mainly because of restricted access to the forest resources for their livelihood. Promotion of some alternative income generating activities to reduce the dependence on natural resources was responded positively by the local people.
With the current complexity of issues facing forest and land management, the implementation of the REDD+ initiative comes with significant risks, including conflict. While the exact nature and shape of conflict in REDD+ implementation is difficult to pinpoint, this study aims to build a preliminary predictive framework to identify possible sources of impairment that may result in conflict over management of forests and natural resources. The framework was developed from an extensive literature review and was tested in three REDD+ pilot project sites in Nepal. The results indicate that most of the sources of impairment are present in all study sites, particularly issues relating to benefit sharing, which have been main drivers of conflict prior to REDD+. While we found that the application of the framework has been useful in the Nepalese context, there are some limitations in its scope and precision. Nonetheless, this study points to important implications with regards to REDD+ implementation and conflict management that can be useful for policy makers and practitioners involved in REDD+ strategy designs, as well as other areas of forest management involving outsiders and communities.
BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.