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Livelihood Strategies and Forest Product Utilisation of Rural Households in Nepal

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Abstract

Most Nepalese rural households adopt diversified strategies of income generation and use products directly collected from forests. To analyse the influence of livelihood strategy on forest product utilisation, a survey of 336 rural households in lowland Nepal was conducted. Four livelihood strategies were identified by means of a Principal Component Analysis based on income variables, followed by hierarchical cluster analysis. Two livelihood strategies are assigned to on-farm activities and two to off-farm activities. The off-farm based strategies were found to result in higher household incomes. To test for differences across the livelihood strategies, additional socio-demographic variables, physical assets and location information have been analysed using ANOVA. The forest product utilisation behaviour of the households differs significantly between livelihood strategies. The households adopting a subsistence-based strategy collect the most forest products while achieving the lowest total income. However, a general influence of the total household income on the forest utilisation intensity is not confirmed. Households receiving remittances from abroad achieve the highest incomes but still collect forest products. The group of most forest-dependent households is mainly characterised by living near the forest and far from city centres with commodity and labour markets, and by having low education and a young head of household. The households relying mainly on private business income have the lowest forest product utilisation and are characterised by the highest education, proximity to markets and greatest area of agricultural land.

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Acknowledgements

The study was conducted as part of the project “Approaches for the Improvement of the Economic Sustainability of Forest Management in the Tropics” carried out by the Thünen-Institute for World Forestry, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture. We would like to express our gratitude for the great support for our fieldwork by Prem Neupane, the Department of Forests, the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, the University of Pokhara, the District Forest Office Chitwan, Jogesh, Salina, Sudip, Bishnu, and the survey respondents for their participation. We thank Prof. Dr. Dieter and assistant lecturer Dr. Günter from the Thünen-Institute and Prof. Dr. Köhl from the University of Hamburg for helpful discussions. The responsibility for any remaining errors remains by the authors.

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  1. Thünen Institute of International Forestry and Forest Economics, Leuschnerstraße 91, 21031, Hamburg, Germany

    Jutta Lax & Margret Köthke

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  1. Jutta Lax
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Correspondence to Margret Köthke.

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Lax, J., Köthke, M. Livelihood Strategies and Forest Product Utilisation of Rural Households in Nepal. Small-scale Forestry 16, 505–520 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-017-9367-0

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