25Mar 2017

EVALUATING IMPACT OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT IN FOREST CONSERVATION: A STUDY ON COMMUNITY FORESTRY PROGRAM IN NEPAL.

  • UNEP TONGJI IESD, College of Environmental Science, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai, 200092, P.R. China.
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Expansion of agricultural land, the growing demand for timberand the local dependency on forest firewood created long term pressure for deforestation in Nepal. Thispaper investigated the impact of community management on forest conservation and outlines the conversiontrend of the forest outlook in Nepal in the past decades by informal interviewing 10 representative Community Forest Users Groups (CFUGs) from the middle hills of the country. The results showed notable positive changesincluding increased forest cover, improved forest product supply and enhanced biodiversity after implementation of the community forestryprogram. The main factor behind the forest restoration is sustainable management adopted by the community and control on forest fire and over exploitation.However, the adopted conservative-oriented approach hampers communities to exploit the maximum benefits. It has been recommended that market-oriented approach would help communities to get more economic benefit than the existing approach. The community led initiative in Nepal has set best example in forest conservation and this experience can be explored by other countries as well.Local people's participation is very important and necessary for common resources management. The research results provide fundamental basis for policy making process regarding common pool resources management and forest governance.

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[Ramesh Kumar Neupane, Wenying Xu, Zhigang Liu, Oskenbayeva Aidana and Ville Nyyssonen. (2017); EVALUATING IMPACT OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT IN FOREST CONSERVATION: A STUDY ON COMMUNITY FORESTRY PROGRAM IN NEPAL. Int. J. of Adv. Res. 5 (Mar). 701-711] (ISSN 2320-5407). www.journalijar.com

Wenying Xu
UNEP TONGJI IESD, College of Environmental Science, Tongji University, Shanghai, Chaina

DOI:

Article DOI: 10.21474/IJAR01/3561      
DOI URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.21474/IJAR01/3561

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