A postmortem of forest policy dynamics of Nepal

Laudari, Hari Krishna; Aryal, Kishor; Maraseni, Tek

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104338

Cited by 30 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Nepal is one of the leading countries for embracing community forestry ( Nuberg et al, 2019 ) and allowing multi-stakeholder engagement in forestry-related decision-making ( Laudari et al, 2020b ). The forestry sector, particularly the community forestry of the country has a significant contribution to poverty reduction and rural development ( Chhetri, 2009 ), forest cover enhancement and regrowth ( Tripathi et al, 2020 ) and contributing 80 targets of the sustainable development goals ( Aryal et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 lockdown and the forestry sector: Insight from Gandaki province of Nepal

Laudari

Pariyar

Maraseni

2021

Forest Policy and Economics

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Almost all countries have imposed large-scale mobility restrictions (or lockdown) to stop the spreading of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). The mobility restriction has disrupted all types of business; causing a devastating impact on countries' economies; and pushing millions of people into extreme poverty. Scientists have been assessing the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on various fronts but there is limited scholarship in the forestry sector. We navigated the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on the forestry sector by taking Gandaki Province (21,974 km 2 ) of Nepal as a case. Employing semi-structured interviews ( n = 62) with all ten stakeholder groups, literature review and media analysis, our study revealed that the COVID-19 lockdown suspended all types of forestry and ecotourism businesses; obstructed research and monitoring activities; halted capacity development and extension services; impacted forest development work; and increased incidences of illegal logging and poaching and trafficking of wildlife. Because of the complete shutdown of businesses, the forestry sector of Gandaki province lost 9.6 million USD and 3.2 million man-days of employment during the lockdown period. The economic cost of the lockdown was 1.73 million USD for NTFPs traders, 1.26 million USD for ecotourism entrepreneurs, 0.55 million USD for the community forest user groups and 0.24 million USD for the smallholder or private forest owner. We suggested four post-COVID recovery pathways, including sustainable forest management, nature-based tourism, improvement of forest products value chain and community-based natural resource management to bounce back from the loss. As the current pandemic is most likely to derail the Sustainable Development Pathways of several countries, including Nepal and necessitates the need for an immediate response, the finding and recommendation of our study may inform decision-makers to reimage post-pandemic recovery and leverage sustainable development.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 lockdown and the forestry sector: Insight from Gandaki province of Nepal

Laudari

Pariyar

Maraseni

2021

Forest Policy and Economics

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“…1950s: The Private Forest Nationalization Act 1957 has always been regarded as a major policy instrument for fueling deforestation in many parts of Nepal [37]. The act transformed the forest management under customary practices into open access resources.…”

Section: Policy Discourse and Its Interaction With Forest Degradation And Restoration Outcomes: A Decadal Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Forest restoration initiatives implemented at various scales (national and subnational) lack horizontal and vertical coordination among governments and stakeholders. Strengthening horizontal and vertical cooperation and coordination mechanisms (horizontal and vertical) among three-tier governments is of utmost importance to make the stakeholders aware of shared but differentiated responsibilities [37] of forest and ecosystem restoration processes and practices [54]. At the provincial and local level, coordination and cooperation mechanisms can be set up by involving relevant stakeholders including local people and the private sector.…”

Section: Strengthen Horizontal and Vertical Cooperation Mechanisms To Implement And Monitor Restoration Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategic Pathways to Scale up Forest and Landscape Restoration: Insights from Nepal’s Tarai

et al. 2021

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Deforestation and forest degradation mostly caused by human interventions affect the capacity of the forest ecosystem to provide ecosystem services and livelihood benefits. Forest and landscape restoration (FLR) is an emerging concept that focuses on the improvement of the ecosystem as well as the livelihood of the people at the landscape level. Nepal has successfully recovered degraded forest land mainly from the hilly region through forest restoration initiatives, especially community-based forestry. However, the Tarai region is still experiencing deforestation and forest degradation. This study navigated the gaps related to forest restoration in the existing policies and practices and revealed that the persistence of deforestation and forest degradation in Tarai is a result of a complex socioeconomic structure, the limitations of the government in implementing appropriate management modality, unplanned infrastructure, and urban development. We suggest that forest restoration should focus on ecological and social wellbeing pathways at the landscape level to reverse the trend of deforestation and forest degradation in the Tarai regions of Nepal. The study provides critical insight to the policymakers and practitioners of Nepal and other countries (with similar context) who are engaged in forest/ecosystem restoration enterprise.

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“…1950s: The Private Forest Nationalization Act 1957 has always been regarded as a major policy instrument for fueling deforestation in many parts of Nepal [34]. The act transformed the forest management under customary practices into open access resources.…”

Section: Context Of Nepal's Teraimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Forest restoration initiatives implemented at various scales (national and subnational) lack horizontal and vertical coordination among the governments and with stakeholders. Strengthening horizontal and vertical cooperation and coordination mechanism (horizontal and vertical) among three-tier governments is of utmost importance to make the stakeholders aware of shared but differentiated responsibilities [34] on forest and ecosystem restoration processes and practices [47]. At the provincial and local level, coordination and cooperation mechanisms can be set up by involving relevant stakeholders including local people and the private sector.…”

Section: Strengthen Horizontal and Vertical Cooperation Mechanism To Implement And Monitor Restoration Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategic Pathways to Scale Up Forest and Landscape Restoration: Insights From Nepal’s Terai

Bhattarai¹,

Pant²,

Laudari³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Deforestation and forest degradation mostly caused by human interventions affects the capacity of forest ecosystem to provide ecosystem services and livelihood benefits. Forest Land Restoration (FLR) is an emerging concept which focuses on the improvement of ecosystem as well as livelihood of the people at the landscape level. Nepal has successfully recovered degraded forest land mainly from the hilly region through forest restoration initiatives especially community based forestry. However, the Terai region is still experiencing deforestation and forest degradation. This study navigated the gaps related to forest restoration in the existing policies and practices and revealed that the persistence of deforestation and forest degradation in Terai is a result of a complex socio-economic structure, limitation of government to implement appropriate management modality, unplanned infrastructure, and urban development. We suggest that forest restoration should focus on ecological and social wellbeing pathways at the landscape level, to reverse the trend of deforestation and forest degradation in the Terai regions of Nepal. The study provides a critical insight to the policy makers and practitioners of Nepal and other countries (with similar context) who are engaged in forest/ecosystem restoration enterprise.

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A postmortem of forest policy dynamics of Nepal

Cited by 30 publications

References 61 publications

COVID-19 lockdown and the forestry sector: Insight from Gandaki province of Nepal

COVID-19 lockdown and the forestry sector: Insight from Gandaki province of Nepal

Strategic Pathways to Scale up Forest and Landscape Restoration: Insights from Nepal’s Tarai

Strategic Pathways to Scale Up Forest and Landscape Restoration: Insights From Nepal’s Terai

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