Abstract
This paper examines the effective practices and constraints of community-based forest management enterprises (CBFEs) in Nepal in providing income benefits to the poor. The tenure reform clarity and strengthening of tenure rights at community level through various CBFM programs in Nepal in the last few decades has enhanced opportunities for the rural people to benefit from forest-based enterprises. However, a key concerns as these programs have advanced over the years has been whether the poor benefit from them given their high dependence on the forests. To examine this question, 28 CBFE from Nepal’s mid-hills and mountain districts were selected purposively from among forest user groups (FUGs) engaged in income-generating activities, varying in their size of membership, use of forest products and stage of growth. These CBFEs have been broadly categorised into FUGs, networks, cooperatives and companies. The contribution from enterprises to the household economy was found to be greatest from companies, followed by cooperatives and then networks. The effective practices of the CBFEs in increasing income benefits were found to include representation of the poor and marginalized groups in executive committees in the FUGs-based enterprises, targeted employment of the poorest in the collection of non-timber forest products and in processing units in networks, and enabling the poor to own share capital in cooperatives and companies. The common constraint across all these categories was found to be lack of adequate capital to sustain the enterprises without external support.The specific constraints were small membership and land size among FUGs, lack of legal recognition of networks, lack of management skills and member discipline for cooperatives, and lack of raw materials and marketing capacity for companies. The paper also discusses: the importance of further policy support to formalize forest user groups into networks, cooperatives and private companies; value addition to forest products; and capacity building for CBFEs, government line agencies and business services providers.
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Notes
CBFM is used here to refer to all community-based forms of forest management, regardless of the degree of participation of the community, placing emphasis to the shift of forest management from a dominantly government-managed to a dominantly community-managed forest.
These programs promoting CBFM are Community Forestry (CF), Leasehold Forestry (LHF), Watershed Management (WM), Collaborative Forest Management (CFM), Integrated Conservation and Development (ICD) and Buffer Zone around a protected area (BZ) (Ojha et al. 2007).
LHF targets the poorest households giving them specific rights (e.g. exclusive access, right to cultivate) over degraded forest through lease. LFUGs have relatively small and homogeneous membership (7–10 members, who are poor according to Biggs and Messerschmidt 2003) and operate small and often relatively unproductive land compared to CFUGs. CFUGs could have 10–850 members (Roche 1996), and generally have larger and more productive land.
The term CBFE should serve more to emphasizing the policy context under which forest enterprises are established and are operating, rather than to make a distinct classification within forest enterprises, given the ambiguity of the term ‘community-based’.
The main rationale of the common ownership of land by forest users within CFUGs is to promote equity and resource sustainability. Given the limited land area and often large membership, a proportional distribution of land to individual members would be impractical because land parcels would be too small and would cause conflict because some parcel would certainly be more productive than others. With regard to governing the use of forest resources, it is easier for the government to regulate a group rather than many individuals.
Despite the restrictive policies, there have been recent policies and programs that favour forest enterprise development, such as the ratification of the Herbs and NTFP Development Policy of 2005 which allowed greater incentives for FUGs to cultivate NTFPs, and the extension of support for LHF implementation in Nepal for eight more years from 2005.
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Pandit, B.H., Albano, A. & Kumar, C. Community-Based Forest Enterprises in Nepal: An Analysis of Their Role in Increasing Income Benefits to the Poor. Small-scale Forestry 8, 447–462 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-009-9094-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-009-9094-2