Socio- Economic Impact of Community Forestry on Income Distribution

Abstract

The Thesis entitled “Socio- Economic Impact of Community Forestry on Income Distribution: A Case Study of Ghailaghari Community Forest User Group Bharatpur -23 Chitwan” has been conducted to examine the impact the community forest in income level of its users. Community Forest is an evolving branch of forestry whereby local community plays a significant role in forest management and land use decision making. it involves the participation and collaboration of various stakeholder including community, government and non-governmental organization. Descriptive research design was used in this research. Data was collected using simple random sampling from 140 household using questionnaire methods. Data was entered and analyzed in to SPSS-20. Different descriptive statistical tools like frequency table, pie diagram and bar diagram were used for data presentation. In this study, most of the household‟s member belongs to economically active group and in literate group. Majority of the household (57.15 percent) head were male and their age rage was 40-50 years. They are from nuclear family. Most of the household economic status was medium level. The higher and middle-income group, having pakki and semi pakki house with their land holdings use LP gas/firewood as a major source of energy consumptions. Most of all household were involved in agriculture (64.28 percent). Also, 28.57 percent mention that poor households have not received adequate opportunity for training package offered in community, 12.85 percent mention that all the peoples are not including all group peoples in decision making process, do not been given sufficient access in forest resources. Most of the households are suffering from wild animals. However, there are many challenges of community forestry, it is a main a source of livelihoods to all of the community forest user group. Keywords: Community Forest, Resources, User group, Wild life, Livelihood.