Impact of Community Forestry on Poverty Reduction A Case Study of Jukekhadi Community Forest User Group, Khudunabari, Jhapa, Nepal

Abstract

This dissertation is an assessment of the Impacts of Community Forestry User Group on Poverty reduction and Local Development Conducted in Jukekhadi Community Forestry. It attempts to find out the different activities made by the user group for the betterment of poor household and user group's participation using the Forest resource. It reviews direct and indirect income generating activities of CFUG Sectors as well as the activities under taken by the user group for the preservation of forest resource. The Government started to hand over forest to the local user people after the restoration of democracy in 1990. Community forestry programme is based on democratic values and norms where People have full authority in protection, management and utilization of forest resource in their own way. It is a kind of participatory approach where community people themselves involve in different development activities using the fund created from the forest resource. Community Forestry is now one of the main forest management systems of Nepal and it aims to provide basic needs and economic benefits to the country's rural people. The master plan for the forestry sector of Nepal (1988) has clear guide lines to place all community forest management works under the control of user groups in order to ensure the benefits as well as the costs for management among the users and to encourage sustainable forest management. In spite of these progressive Ideas for the development of sustainable forest management system, equitable benefits sharing among user and conducting community development activity as well as poverty reduction activity and welfare activity of user have become one of the most challenging issues in planning and development of community forestry. Conflicts and disputes generally guided by political ideology have often developed among the users, particularly when the time for implementation of various forest operations, allocating the forest products, benefit sharing, eventually arrived. Meanwhile, government forest policies and legislation are inadequate to encourage user groups to solve these problems. Hence, a study of the community development, forest development activity carried out by CF and real income generation and benefit sharing pattern for sustainable community forest management is relevant to present day challenges of community forestry in Nepal. Identifying the real benefits and real income generation from community forestry may present no major conceptual difficulties but can be very difficult to carry out in practice. Income to the FUG from the collection of fuel wood, poles, timber, least litter, fodder, grasses and bedding materials are taken as the direct benefits. The indirect value of community forest refers to socio-economic and environmental goods and services that the Jukekhadi Community Forest provides Community Forestry Programme has become economically effective providing sustainable forest products, reducing the poverty level, generating income through modernization of traditional agricultural pattern, helping in rural infrastructure building etc. This micro-level study has shown that the present management process of the Jukekhadi Community Forestry needs to be improved to increase its productivity and distribute its direct and indirect benefit to the users on an equitable basis infect, user can be motivated to rationalize forest use only if they themselves are benefited from improved forest management. Equitable benefit sharing and decision making process are fundamental factors in the sustainable development of community forestry.