Contributuion of Community Forestry in Livelihoods enhancement of Users Groups "A Sociological study of Mayalu Community Forestry" in Dang District

Abstract

National forest in Nepal is being increasingly handed over as community forest to fulfill the basic needs of forest products along with income and employment to the rural people. With changing context, community forest has broadened itself as important activity for rural livelihood empowerment. The need of identifying rural livelihoods empowerment impact of community forestry with emphasizing the employment opportunity, researcher has chosen this study topic contribution of community forestry in livelihood enhancement of users group by increased employment opportunity in selected community forest in Dang district. Focus group discussion, face-to face household survey and study of relevant secondary literature were the basic tools to gather the information. Both qualitative as well as quantitative data were used to draw the conclusion. Quantitative data were analyzed with the help of computer, Excel 2007. Majority (83 %) of respondents had agricultural occupation. Land holdings has positive correlation with well-being status in agrarian society, thus it was tried to find out the landholdings of the respondent. The majority of the respondents were from medium level landholdings (0.33 to 1.6 ha) size. Livestock rearing practices was changing towards stall-feeding system from conventional open grazing system after the handover the forest patches as community forestry. It has created positive impact on regeneration in community forest.Alternative energy was found at initial stage in the study area. Only 19 % respondents have installed Bio-gas plant for cooking purpose. This figure indicates that, there is great potentiality of bio-gas installation. Some forest management activities were practiced in CFUG but they were still passively managed with strict protection. The resources were underutilized. Neither, the forest operational plan was positive towards active forest management nor the users were aware about the importance of active forest management for sustainable benefit. Recently, some NTFP promotion activity was introduced in selected CF which has contributed to the earning of users. This study has highlighted the potentiality of future employment generation through intensive management of productive forest and NTFP promotion in CF through short term lease to the poor users .The case of selected CF,Mayalu CFUG has shown the possibility of earning Nepalese currency Twenty thousand per annum from just 2 kattha (0.06 ha) of land. iv This study reveals that community forestry has remarkable contribution in livelihood as sets generation but the assets were not equitably accessible to the poor people. The disparity of poor in human, financial, and social assets were identified. Total of 3 person full employment for whole year employment have been created through community forestry in selected CF. This study has explored the future potentiality of 100workday/ha seasonal employment from the intensive forest management and 480 workday/hafrom NTFP cultivation. It has recommended for technical support to the users for active forest management as well as NTFP cultivation & processing. Present research has also recommended the need of strong marketing linkage of NTFP products to increase the benefitto the rural community. The recommendations for user group level are equitable benefit sharing system should be adopted during the distribution of forest products and group fund, and It is very important to include poor, women and other disadvantaged members in the decision making position of CFUG. Similarly at the district level; technical support for active forest management needs to be provided through DFO and/or other partner organizations. NTFP cultivation should be promoted with sufficient technical knowledge and well-established marketing mechanism should be improved in district level. Identification and promotion of viable forest based enterprises needs to be established in a way that provide sustainable benefits to the poorusers.