Breaking the Bottleneck: Conflicts Metamorphosis of Chure Landscape Management in Federal Nepal

Abstract

Chure forests, which is one of the youngest and most fragile landscapes of Nepal, continue to be degraded due to resource exploitation and conflict over its management. This region is considered to be the lifeline to down-stream communities -mainly for water -while inhabiting millions of poor and rural people that depend on natural resources -especially forests commons. Government initiatives to manage Chure have escalated contestations in the recent years. Its decision to declare Chure landscape as 'Environmental Protection Area' manifests a protection-centric management approach. This research scrutinises the genesis of contestation on Chure management utilising three-elements of conflicts described by Brown et al. (2017). It analyses power-relation to demonstrate potential implications on Chure landscape management as well as conflict resolution options, in the changed political context of federal Nepal. Our research reveals that all stakeholders are well aware of the continuous degradation of Chure landscape and have agreed on discovering the common locus of sustainable management. However, the state-community contestation still persists due to divergent understandings of degradation. Despite multiple strands of management options, contextualised communitybased approach still appears to be an appropriate option to solve this persistent contestation, building on the practices of community forestry and historic failures of top-down, protectioncentric management practice. The newly elected provincial and local governments could further facilitate a more effective management of Chure landscape through resolving the contentious state-community conflict.

Agroforestry Systems and Their Contribution to Supplying Forest Products to Communities in the Chure Range, Central Nepal

“…It lies within the geographical location of 80°9′25″ to 88°11′16″ longitudes and 26°37′47″ to 29°10′27″ latitudes and comprises the youngest mountains in the world [39]. It covers about 12.78% of the area of Nepal and is among the most fragile ecoregion of Nepal [40]. The Chure region is the most highlighted region considering its heavy vulnerability to mass erosion and landslides caused by heavy deforestation [41].…”

Connecting tiger (Panthera tigris) populations in Nepal: Identification of corridors among tiger‐bearing protected areas

“…Nepal recently adopted the federal governance structure, thereby equipping local and provincial governments with the financial capacity and authority to meet their respective local communities' development needs and aspirations. However, the absence of coherent development plans across local governments, coordination among local agencies, and expertise in integrating environmental concerns into development projects (Bhattarai et al, 2018 ; Thakali et al, 2018 ) may contribute to further degradation of the Siwalik landscape and its ability to support landscape connectivity.…”

“…TA B L E 4 Probability of connectivity (dPC) for each protected area representing its relative contribution to maintaining connectivity across the network using two different habitat node attributes. (Bhattarai et al, 2018;Thakali et al, 2018) may contribute to further degradation of the Siwalik landscape and its ability to support landscape connectivity.…”