Participation of Women in Community Forestry: A Case Study of Pawannagar Vdc, Dang

Abstract

This thesis entitled Participation of Women in Community Forestry: A Case Study of Pawannagar VDC, Dang was targeted to examine the real situation of women's participation. The objectives of this study were (i) to examine the representation status of women in community forest user group committee (ii) To find out the problems faced by women in community forest activities (iii) To assess the women's participation in different activities of the community forestry. The research design of this study was both descriptive and analytic. Regarding the sample size 60 respondents were taken from 240 households. Different methods i.e. household survey, observation and through structured questionnaire were adopted for data collection. The data collected from primary and secondary sources are presented in tables to make the comprehensive analysis. The study has found that in Takiyapur CFUG, respondents are the age between 25 to 35 years the users are from different caste and ethnic group. The study has further found that women are mainly engaged in primary sector which has very low productivity. Similarly their educational status is also very poor; according to them this is the main cause of low representation of women in CF executive committee. Women’s participation in regular group meeting is also found very low though they use to attain some specific meetings regularly. It is quite surprising that more than half, 60 percent of the total respondents are not only non familiar with executive committee, they also don't have any idea regarding executive committee. Consequently, womens role in conservation, policy formulating and benefit sharing is relatively very poor as compared to men. So far as the forest conservation is concerned, plantation is not took place for many years. Mean while various operational activities like punning, thinning and fire-line conservation are also not carried out in this particular CFUG. By contrast, user groups are involved in different activities inside the forest such as firewood and fodder collection, grazing cattles etc which are some of the hindrances in the growth of N/TFPs.