Role of Community Forestry in Women Empowerment A Case Study on Himali Sundarpur CF Chyangthapu- 6, Panchthar District

Abstract

The study entitled "Role of Community Forestry in Women Empowerment (A case study of Himali Sundarpur CF Chyangthapu VDC-6, Panchthar District) has been done in the issue of women's empowerment through community forest. Community forest is the people's participatory approach in which the local users of the forest are involved in planning, development, protection, production and use of forest resources. The concept of CF came in to practice in Nepal in the late seventy (1978). At present, the CF programme is launched in most of the parts of Nepal and around 15 thousand FUGs are introduced across the country. Since, woman occupies about 51% of the total population in Nepal, women empowerment and resource accessibility is required to enhance rural development. Women are the keys to open and manage the problems and resources respectively since the long period ago. To strengthen their role in rural development, Nepal also has included women in different development activities and one of them is in community forest management. Community forestry is the most vital option to cope with the women underdevelopment and backwardness. In Nepal, CF has introduced the concept of community forestry in 1978 A.D. with the assistance of World Bank. However, it lacked to involve women particularly in its initial period. The participation of women in community forest management goes data back to the decade of 1990s after the restoration of democracy. Community forestry is people oriented forest program in Nepal. The effectiveness of CF in relation to role of women is very crucial. Still, the primary forest user group (women) is not participated properly in the CFM. This study focused on the role of community forestry in women empowerment. To fulfill these objectives, Nursery community forest of, Chyangthapu VDC of Panchthar district was selected as study area. HSCFUG has 50 households out of total 25 households were selected as sample units. To meet the objectives of the study, primary & secondary data were collected from the field survey. These data are analyzed descriptively & analytically with the help of computer software programmed. For this study, 15 respondents were women and rest was males. It was found that majority of the FUG were made up with the women. It is due to their resource utilization and majority male are in the outside from the village especially in foreign employment. Among the total respondents, The study has revealed that the role of CF in women empowerment is higher in respect to their increasing the participation in development activities due to large accessibility of feminist resources such as fire wood, grass etc. In case of the respondents’ view about the role of this forestry in women enhancement, they were satisfied though they requested to bring up different programs at local level. Some important findings of the study. The HSF FUG has made rules for protection, management, benefit sharing and implementing following those rules and regulations. The main leadership has been taken from women community. Women participation in general assemblies and regular meetings of FUG is not satisfactory. In the study area, women's participation in CFM is found limited. Women's involvement in operational plan preparation is found. There are various caste and cultural groups who are the users of CF. The HSCF user group is a multi ethnic group where Rai , Gurungs, Brameens and Dalits together. Agriculture is the main occupation of the people in the study area. But agricultural production is not sufficient for their livelihood. So, people of the area are involved themselves in subsidiary occupation in various types of services as well as labour, driver, trade.