Participation and Decision Making Process of Women in Communityforest Users Group. (A Case Study of Thapla community Forest Users Group of Silgadhi Municipality-3 of Doti District.)

Abstract

National Forest of Nepal is being increasingly handed over as Community Forest to fulfill thebasic needs of products with income and employment to the rural people. Forests are closelyinterrelated with daily livelihood as well as other activities for example Farming. It is as thecentral source of energy, fodders, Construction materials, firewood and equally contributes inagricultural production. Community Forestry is anapproach where local users are assumed asmanager, protector, and owner of forest resource and ultimately get benefit from there. Atpresent the Community Forest programme is implemented and in most of the area of Nepalthat covers more than 40 percent of forest area. To fulfill losing green forest, concept ofCommunity Forest was adopted by Nepalese Government since 1978. The research study entitled “Participation and decision making process of women in communityforest users group: A case study of Thapla Community forest user group of Silgadhi Municipality-3 of Doti District” has has been carried out with the objective analyzing the status and roleplayed by women in the Community Forest user group. The main objective of this research was to examine the socio-economic status of and theexisting situation of women participation. The specific objectives are to identify the women’srole in Community forest management activities and benefit sharing on women. To fulfill these objectives of Thapla Community Forest of Silgadhi Municipality-3 of Doti Districtwas selected as a research area. Thapla Community Forest consists of 75 households wherealtogether there are 85 members of this community forest were taken as sample and other keyinformants such as teacher, local leaders, etc. Tools like questionnaire, checklists are developedfor interview survey, key informants interview, focus group discussion. Users group of Thapla Community Forest consists mainly four castes Brahmin, Chhetri, Janjatiand Dalits. The forest user group is heterogeneous in terms of ethnicity and homogeneous interms of religion. The main finding of the study show that male and female have an equalcontribution in CF management activities but in comparison with males; females are mostpunctual in various meetings. All the committee members actively participated during thedecision making, implementation and benefit sharing process. The finding shows that the majorfactors that affect the active participation of women in different activities are education andfamily support. The Community Forest is the forest handed over the local Community on which theyhave thefull authority to use, protect and manage it in their own way. The female members of ThaplaCommunity Forest executive committee are actively participating in the meeting and other activities of CF. Educational status of people plays a key role for better involvement of women.The outcome of the study suggested that education has the vital role in active participation ofwomen in public activities like CF management.