Collaborative Forest Management in Nepal: Tenure, Governance and Contestations

Abstract

Collaborative forest management (CFM) is a ‘community-based’ forest tenure regime that works in partnership between the central government, local government and local forest user groups in Nepal’s Terai, particularly in the management of large, contiguous forests. It has been in practice since the early 2000s in the form of ‘pilot initiatives’ and is gradually receiving greater legal attention. Through our own experiences, available literature and review of policies, we document the evolutionary history of Terai forest and CFM’s current issues. We found that the management aspects of Terai forests have been weak throughout its history. We also found a number of issues and challenges in the implementation of CFM. Some of the prominent issues include ambiguity in tenure rights and security, lack of appropriate and uncontested policy provisions for cost and benefit sharing among collaborators, limited decision-making space for forest-managing communities and local governments, and limited capacity of collaborators for the productive management of forests. We suggest tenure reform in terms of legal, institutional, technical and financial arrangements, so as to make CFM an effective forest management model in the Terai.

Scientific Forest Management Practice in Nepal: Critical Reflections from Stakeholders’ Perspectives

“…Since stakeholders have witnessed events where the conventional techno-bureaucratic authority has constrained the autonomy of FUGs [28,[62][63][64], stakeholders suspect that the implementation of SciFM will herald the revival of recentralized forest management. Further, the productive, high-value forests of Nepal's Tarai have always been a focus of conflict [65][66][67] among the stakeholders due to their diverse interests being dominated by political and economic considerations and motivations. Cases from community forests implementing SciFM have revealed that forest management decisions under SciFM are predominantly guided by the forest administration [29].…”

Conflict transformation and collaboration in developing social forestry in Flores, Indonesia

“…The idea of conflict transformation is in line with the perspectives of dynamic power/authority, which suggests mutually shared roles to all the parties. Such perspectives of power/authority considers forest tenure conflicts as a result of unbalanced power relations among the relevant parties in forest tenure (Bodin, 2017;Dhungana et al, 2017;Evans et al, 2008;Maring, 2010;Ratner et al, 2017;Suporahardjo, 2005). Achieving a dynamic yet balanced set of power relations began with each party openly articulating their interests as a basis for collaboration, which was supported through the creation of a common goal, and consistently implemented through control mechanisms (Adu et al, 2015;Maring, 2013;Ratner et al, 2014;Sumanto, 2009).…”

Context-responsive Approaches of / for Teachers’ Professional Development: A Participatory Framework

“…The journal entry uncovered that basic level teachers decided on their pedagogical approaches. That motivated us to create a better decision-making space, where every member could share benefits equally (S. P. Dhungana et al, 2017). We began to explore ways that we could make space for all researchparticipants to experience equal benefits from collaborative practices.…”