Human interactions with forest landscape in the Khumbu valley, Nepal

Abstract

In recent decades there has been growing interest in the contribution of Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) livelihood strategies to rural development and poverty alleviation. However, the potential of NTFPs to contribute to development remained limited and open to doubt. The study objectives were to: (i) analyze the role of NTFPs livelihood strategies in rural development in order to explain their potentials and failures; and (ii) identify and analyze the factors influencing the contribution of NTFPs livelihood strategies to household income. The study was carried out analyzing three NTFPs in Rashad locality in the Nuba Mountains, Sudan in 2008-2009. The data were collected through interviews, direct observations and market surveys. Purposive sampling technique was applied to select 221 and 62 collector and trader households, respectively. The results revealed that Adansonia digitata fruit sale represents a subsistence strategy for some sampled households and accumulative strategy for others, while Ziziphus spina-christi and Balanites aegyptiaca fruits sale is a subsistence strategy for all the surveyed households. The study results also showed that the income from selling the fruits was positively and negatively influenced by different external and internal factors. The study concluded that any assumption regarding the potential of NTFPs to positively affect rural development depends on their role in an accumulative strategy that lifts people out of poverty. Institutional, technical and financial supports are necessary to influence the future direction of the NTFP contribution toward accumulative strategy. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Cultural Values and Sustainable Tourism Governance in Bhutan

“…Trekking represents the biggest threat to Bhutan's environment. Nepal's experience is particularly notable given the deforestation, trail erosion, contamination of water, and solid waste problems arising from tourist trekkers [41][42][43][44]. Bhutan's relatively small number of high paying tourists combined with strong regulations around garbage and fuel wood have helped avoid this problem.…”

Landscapes in the Anthropocene: State of the art and future directions

“…The mediaeval period is confirmed as important with accelerated sedimentation of fine-grained materials, notably in the smallest catchments, as has also been shown by Brown et al (2013b). Garbarino et al (2014) examine forest stand structure and composition at the landscape scale in the Sagarmatha National Park and its Buffer Zone in the Khumbu valley (Nepal) to understand human interactions with forest resources. Using biological and historical data sources, a multi-scale approach revealed the influence of human activities on the distribution of tree species and forest structure.…”

Mountains as a Global Heritage: Arguments for Conserving the Natural Diversity of Mountain Regions

“…However, in the current era of pervasive anthropogenic modifications of important parameters of the earth system, mountains as storehouses of important natural diversity are under incremental threat [14]. There are two broad categories of stressors on mountain systems: direct stressors related to land conversion, expansion of visitation, and appropriation of resources [15][16][17]; and more diffuse yet powerful stressors such as global climatic change that will disproportionately affect mountains [18][19][20]. Impacts converge on the loss of glacial ice volume and colonization of formerly cold-adapted niches by lowland species (implying the effective collapse of the densely stacked and finely balanced "life zones") [20,21] and loss of spatial heterogeneity and dynamism of natural processes, notably at the mountain catchment level [22,23].…”