GIS Assessment of Land Use/Land Cover Changes Associated With Community Forestry Implementation in the Middle Hills of Nepal

Gautam, Ambika P.; Webb, Edward L.; Eiumnoh, Apisit

doi:10.1659/0276-4741(2002)022[0063:gaolul]2.0.co;2

Cited by 134 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…However, at intermediate group sizes (5-15 individuals per hectare of forest area), forest regeneration is maximum. Similar relationships have been demonstrated in previous studies in South Asia (18,35,54,55). When the number of users is too few relative to the total forest area, forest planting, maintenance, monitoring, and other critical tasks cannot be carried out effectively.…”

Section: Associates Of Reforestationsupporting

confidence: 91%

Drivers of reforestation in human-dominated forests

Nagendra

2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

171

105

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Tropical forest habitat continues to decline globally, with serious negative consequences for environmental sustainability. The small mountain country of Nepal provides an excellent context in which to examine trajectories of forest-cover change. Despite having experienced large-scale forest clearing in the past, significant reforestation has taken place in recent years. The range of biophysical and ecological environments and diversity of tenure arrangements provide us with a context with sufficient variation to be able to derive insight into the impact of a range of hypothesized drivers of forest change. This article draws on a dataset of 55 forests from the middle hills and Terai plains of Nepal to examine the factors associated with forest clearing or regeneration. Results affirm the central importance of tenure regimes and local monitoring for forest regrowth. In addition, user group size per unit of forest area is an important, independent explanator of forest change. These variables also can be associated with specific practices that further influence forest change such as the management of social conflict, adoption of new technologies to reduce pressure on the forest, and involvement of users in forest maintenance activities. Such large-N, comparative studies are essential if we are to derive more complex, nuanced, yet actionable frameworks that help us to plan better policies for the management of natural resources.community forestry ͉ group size ͉ institutions ͉ monitoring ͉ Nepal I n recent decades, humankind has witnessed unprecedented destruction of forest cover, with its accompanying fallout on global climate, health, biodiversity, air quality, soil fertility, water flow, and other environmental variables. Deforestation also impacts the lives and livelihoods of the many millions of forest-dependent inhabitants around the world. Awareness of the extent of forest clearing and the magnitude of the ensuing problems have led communities, governments, and international organizations to create an array of protection mechanisms that range from government-owned protected areas to private conservation parks and community reserves. These plans have had mixed success, and it is difficult to unambiguously attribute success or failure to a specific formal mechanism (1, 2). Yet, conservation organizations, indigenous communities, and policy makers continue to engage in often heated debates concerning the presumed single best approach to conserve forest biodiversity (3).The remarkable dearth of reliable large datasets on forest change only exacerbates the already heated deforestation debate. Until recently, estimates by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations were used for most global studies. These data are based on information provided by government agencies in Ͼ200 countries and have been strongly criticized for providing an inaccurate picture complicated by variations in methodology and frequently changing baseline definitions of forest (4). More reliable assessments of rates of tropical d...

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Section: Associates Of Reforestationsupporting

confidence: 91%

Drivers of reforestation in human-dominated forests

Nagendra

2007

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

171

105

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“…In many cases, the size of old secondary growth areas is too small to be detected by Landsat and IRS. In addition, the mountain topography leads to a significant shadowing effect, which becomes a particular problem in the digital image processing [1][2][3][4][5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving Landsat and IRS Image Classification: Evaluation of Unsupervised and Supervised Classification through Band Ratios and DEM in a Mountainous Landscape in Nepal

Bahadur

2009

Remote Sensing

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Modification of the original bands and integration of ancillary data in digital image classification has been shown to improve land use land cover classification accuracy. There are not many studies demonstrating such techniques in the context of the mountains of Nepal. The objective of this study was to explore and evaluate the use of modified band and ancillary data in Landsat and IRS image classification, and to produce a land use land cover map of the Galaudu watershed of Nepal. Classification of land uses were explored using supervised and unsupervised classification for 12 feature sets containing the Landsat MSS, TM and IRS original bands, ratios, normalized difference vegetation index, principal components and a digital elevation model. Overall, the supervised classification method produced higher accuracy than the unsupervised approach. The result from the combination of bands ration 4/3, 5/4 and 5/7 ranked the highest in terms of accuracy (82.86%), while the combination of bands 2, 3 and 4 ranked the lowest (45.29%). Inclusion of DEM as a component band shows promising results.

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“…Community forestry programs are recognized as providing a range of economic and social benefits to the participating user groups [9][10][11], and having a positive impact on increasing forest cover [14][15][16][17]. However, many concerns have been raised about the capability of user groups to manage CFs in a sustainable manner [5,8,11,18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why is There No Tragedy in These Commons? An Analysis of Forest User Groups and Forest Policy in Bhutan

Buffum

2012

Sustainability

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Governments around the world are increasingly devolving authority for forest management to the local level in an attempt to strengthen the management of national forests. Community forestry programs are recognized as providing a range of economic and social benefits and having a positive impact on increasing forest cover. However, concerns have been raised about the capability of user groups to manage community forests in a sustainable and equitable manner. This study analyzed the initial experience with community forestry in Bhutan and assessed the degree to which national policies have enhanced the likelihood of successful management by forestry user groups. The study found that the studied communities possess many attributes of successful forest user groups due to historical and socio-cultural reasons. National policies, including the unusual provision of handing over well-stocked forests to user groups, have further enhanced the likelihood of sustainable management by forest user groups. The initial experience of forest management by user groups in Bhutan is promising, and merits further study now that that a much larger number of community forests (CFs) have experience with harvesting.

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GIS Assessment of Land Use/Land Cover Changes Associated With Community Forestry Implementation in the Middle Hills of Nepal

Abstract: 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.

Cited by 134 publications

References 7 publications

Drivers of reforestation in human-dominated forests

Drivers of reforestation in human-dominated forests

Improving Landsat and IRS Image Classification: Evaluation of Unsupervised and Supervised Classification through Band Ratios and DEM in a Mountainous Landscape in Nepal

Why is There No Tragedy in These Commons? An Analysis of Forest User Groups and Forest Policy in Bhutan

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