Contribution of Community Forestry for the Livelihood of Rural People (A Case Study of Gijara and Babukuwa Community Forest of Banke District)

Abstract

Community Forestry is most accurately and usefully understood as an umbrella term denoting a wide range of activities which link rural people with forests, trees and the products and benefits to be derived from them. This study was carried out in two different Community Forest in Banke district on the basis of proposed criteria’s with the help of District Forest Office, Banke. This study investigates the user’s preference towards forest products and quantifies the direct economic contribution of community forestry to the user’s households. Empirical data of the case study were collected from Gijara and Babukuwa CFUGs which are located inUdharapur and Kamdi VDC respectively inBanke district in Nepal. Households survey, group discussion, key informant interviews were the main methods applied in the investigation. Out of 624 HHs 77 were selected purposively in which 35 (276) from Gijara and 42 (348) from Babukuwa was selected and survey was carried out to collect primary information from the users’ household using interview schedule, group discussion and field observation. Secondary information was collected from different published and unpublished literatures from different sources. Collected data was logically presented with simple tables, charts, percentage and diagram. Qualitative data was analyzed in descriptive way.

The user’s with low economic status (poor) are the main beneficiaries of the community forest. It is also found that such people are extracting more commercial forest products whereas the interest of the high economic status (rich) were mostly limited to in- house consumption and subsistence uses of forest products. It was clearly shown that the higher the household’s income, the lower the dependency on CF. In both CFUGs, CF contribute to reducing the inequality of household income among the different forest user groups.