Political Ecology of Collaborative Forest Management

Abstract

There is people's involvement in different types of forest management modality adopted in Nepal however there are lots of differences regarding defining users, forming executive committee, relation with state and benefit sharing(Political decisions), which has tremendous effect on the conservation and utilization of forest resources (Ecology). This study has reviewed and explored the equity and sustainability issues in the forestry sector in the Terai, Nepal with a focus on the past and present forest politics and policy in the region and its effect in the Terai Forest. The major objective of the study is to explore the political ecology of the newly launched participatory forest management modality known as Collaborative Forest Management.Collaborative Forest Management approach intends to manage the government managed forests of the Terai through the involvement of the local government and people in decision making, implementation, benefit sharing and monitoring. The study has explored the socio-political dimension of the CFM. It has tried to explore how far this model is successful to address the issues such as involvement of distant users, establishment of rights and control of distant user in CFM, sustainable forest management in collaboration with the local people, local government and the state to achieve multiple benefits, maintaining ecological balance, harmonizing social cohesion and generating economic returns and improving livelihood from the government forests.The equity concerns among proximate and distant users also becomes a complex and prominent issue in the case of Terai as most of forests lie quite far away from the settlements, unlike the hill community forests where more readily identified local communities live near the forest patches. The study was conducted in Sahajnath Collaborative Forest of Bara districts of Central Terai.The CFM covers 26 VDCs with 7,527 households. The study was based on three pillars namely the related theories (Political ecology), author’s experiences (from forest extension worker to civil society worker, social activist and Forest Policy Analyst) and the fresh case study from Sahajnath Collaborative Forest, Bara of Central Terai. Questionnaire, interview, secondary data collection was methods adopted as tools of data collection. It is found that only 13 CFM has been approved in Nepal. Reluctance has been seen in providing approval to CFM. Total 29,799.8 area and 130,638 HH has been IV covered by the CFM. It has been extended from three districts to eight districts. News and articles on CFM has been getting space in media and forestry journals. It is found that the CFM system has tried to involve both nearby and distance users in the forest management and also in the benefit sharing. On the other hand, it has involved the multi-stake holders in the management of the natural resources. It has delegated rights to formation of group,price fixing of product, formation of different committee as required, protection of resource and fund raising rights to the users. The trend of approval of CFM clearly showed the hesitation to approve new CFM. The research clearly found that after 2061/2062 approval started again only in 2065/066. However some improvement have been required to pick up the existing condition of the CFM such as sharing of the benefit must be revised to provide greater share to the users as the number of users of CFM is very high. The CFM Manual and the CFM Scheme plans are applied in a rigid manner.As CFM is a new management modality it should be treated in a flexible way. CFM as participatory and decentralized sustainable forest management model should be replicated not only in Terai and inner Terai but also in feasible area of hill and mid hill forests. CFM is a technical and scientific forestry management so regular capacity building through training and management support should be provided to CFM-G and CFM-C. Further detail exploration on social cohesion building part seems necessary to know the silent benefits of the CFM.