How sustainable is the current sustainable forest management approach in Nepal?
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Participatory approach of forest management in Nepal has contributed to increase the forest cover by two folds within two decades. Being protection-oriented it couldn’t contribute towards forest quality improvement and derive economic opportunities to the forest associated communities. In response to the limitations, fulfilling growing demand for forest-based products and need for better silvicultural practice, the Government of Nepal initiated a practice of scientific management of forests (SciFM) in 2012. The initiative has expanded now to 30 collaborative forests, 285 community forests and government managed block forests in Nepal. There has been an argument on the sustainability of SciFM practice among the stakeholders. Eight year since the launch, there is limited information and research about its implementation related to sustainability.<br /> This paper has examined the economic, social and ecological sustainability of forest SciFM practices against the standards for sustainable forest management for Nepal approved by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Focus Group Discussions with four communities from ecological regions, key information interviews, experts consultation, document review and online survey were the major sources of information.<br /> Our analysis shows that the current scientific forest management practice yet to fully meet the requirement to make it more sustainable. Compliance with forest policy and laws, application of technical forestry, fair benefit sharing mechanism, and record keeping systems are relatively addressed however more effort would be needed for securing workers right, adoption of FPIC procedure, safeguarding biodiversity, high value conservation and monitoring and evaluation. To increase overall sustainability, simplification of procedures and confidence building of forest users groups/local communities, indigenous peoples, women through technical, financial and managerial capacity building is highly required.
Keywords: Sustainable forest management, Governance, Adaptive and integrated management, Economic Development
ID: 3622557