Buffer Zone Community Forestry in Nepal: Examining Tenure and Management Outcomes

Abstract

This paper examines the transfer of management rights over forests and natural resources and exercise of such rights by various sections of local communities in Protected Area (PA) buffer zones in Nepal. The study is based on an extensive review of government policy documents, available published and grey materials. The paper has also been drawn from the long experiences of the authors working in PAs and buffer zones in various parts of the country. We found that Buffer Zone Community Forests (BZCFs) have so far made significant contribution to biodiversity conservation, local livelihoods and institutional building in buffer zones. However, we also found a range of critical challenges in realising clear, comprehensive and secure rights by the local communities. Effective functioning of buffer zone community forestry is undermined by ever-increasing demand of forest products, lack of needed management autonomy and support from the PA management authorities, absence of clear policy guideline, increasing human-wildlife conflict and persistence of social exclusion of women, poor and marginalised. We argue that a better understanding and attention to address tenure related challenges in BZCFs would aid both conservation and local livelihoods and thereby enhance socio-ecological resilience of buffer zone communities.

Local perceptions of forest rules and interactions between rules, ecotourism, and human-wildlife conflicts: Evidence from Chitwan National Park, Nepal

“…To gain the support of local communities in the management of PAs, the Government of Nepal enacted the fourth amendment to the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act in 1993 (CNP 2013;Kanel 2012), and promulgated the concept of the buffer zone (BZ) 1 (Bhandari and Zhou, 2017). This was a significant policy transformation and tenure reform for PAs to institutionalize participatory conservation (Thing and Poudel 2017). The amendment granted authority to User Groups (UGs; comprising representatives from each household) to call meetings with various group members for discussion and agreement before preparing a work plan;…”

“…Furthermore, availability of livelihood alternatives must be ensured for maintaining cordial relations between buffer zone communities (Thapa 2015). Buffer Zone Community Forests (BZCFs) are of great value to local communities when the extraction of resources from core PAs is prohibited (Thing and Poudel 2017).…”

Analyzing the investment effects of forest rights devolution in Nepal’s community-managed forest enterprises

“…There are many factors working against CFE success in LHF, such as the small number of group members and limited areas of allocated forestland (Albano et al 2008). CFEs are also formed by buffer zone user groups (BZUGs) although this is a somewhat different type of devolved forest management modality established under a separate law: the 1973 National Wildlife and Conservation Act (Thing and Poudel 2017).…”

“…Although there are no separate guidelines for the management of BZUGs, in practice, they operate in a similar fashion to CFUGs. There is, however, no clarity as to duration of tenure (Thing and Poudel 2017); much depends on the warden, who holds considerable discretionary authority (Jhaveri and Adhikari 2016). Additionally, it is not possible to obtain a tree-felling permit for BZCF and nor is commercial use or marketing of wood products allowed (although excess products can be distributed to neighboring BZUGs).…”

On the Road to Sustainability? A Review of a Half-Century of Biodiversity Conservation Successes in Nepal and Some Thoughts on Future Needs

“…We focus on many conservation programs that have shown promise (e.g. [11][12][13][14]) and we consider some taxon-specific conservation successes and concerns (e.g. [15,16]).…”