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Document Author(s): Winrock International

This study examines the impact of community forestry in the Terai, Mid-Hills, and High Mountains as well as leasehold forestry, watershed management, buffer zone management, and service providers in the forestry sector. Researchers used semistructured interviews, extensive interviews with various stakeholders, participatory rural appraisal, secondary sources, and published materials. The study provides a good overview of the evolution of community forestry in Nepal including many stepst included in the NWP framework. It highlights the success of community forestry, but also brings up issues such as minimal impacts in some areas on the Wealth portion of NWP, and the failure of the Nature portion in other areas such as the Terai. Issues of inequality of distribution of resources amongst social classes, and in some cases the exclusion of certain user groups and women is discussed.

Reviewer: Kelly Gibbons

Review Date: 2013-01-11

Publisher: Winrock International and the Ford Foundation

Document type(s):

• Regional case study
• Project technical document (e.g. focusing on one or more aspects, such as technical approach, monitoring, application of a specific tool, etc)

Star rating: ★★★

Regions:

• Asia

Country: Nepal

Natural resource(s):

• NTFPs
• Biodiversity
• Forest
• Timber

Ecosystem service(s):

• Biodiversity
• Forest Carbon

NWP Principles - Nature

• Fostered innovation, social learning, and adaptive management - [Relevant]
• Promoted local land use planning and appropriate resource tenure systems - [Relevant]
• Built capacity and invested in human resources - [Relevant]
• Improved information and knowledge management systems - [Relevant]
• Promoted cost effective technical advisory and intermediary services - [Relevant]

NWP Principles - Wealth

• Promoted or developed economic strategies for natural resource management - [Relevant]
• Assured that resource managers have access to NRM means and benefits - [Relevant]
• Strengthened markets and NRM market incentives - [Relevant]
• Proportional equivalence between benefits and costs - [Relevant]
• Invested in local organizations - [Relevant]
• Created a framework for better NRM choices - [Relevant]

NWP Principles - Power

• Continuous and inclusive consultations - [Relevant]n
• Procedural rights for all people, especially vulnerable or marginalized groups - [Relevant]
• Natural resource authority and functions distribution - [Relevant]
• Local stakeholder input into public decisions and policy - [Relevant]

Tools used

• Devolution to communities
• Participatory processes for social change
• Land use planning
• Land tenure securitization
• Resource user groups
• Devolution to local governments
• Tree tenure rights
• Information/knowledge management technology
• Participatory Planning

Constraints

• Environmental/productivity - [Yes]
• Governance/empowerment - [Yes]
• Economic/income generation - [Yes]

Solutions

• Environmental/productivity - [Yes]
• Governance/empowerment - [Yes]
• Economic/income generation - [Yes]

Impacts

• Environmental/productivity - [Yes]
• Governance/empowerment - [Yes]
• Economic/income generation - [Yes]

Additional Discussion Topics

• Lessons learned (Cautionary Tale)
• Lessons learned (Success Story)
• Governance - [External or structural policies that influenced success or failure]
• Economic - [External or structural policies that influenced success or failure]
• Resources - [External or structural policies that influenced success or failure]