Forest products preference of rural economic spectrum in the community forests of Nepal
Paper Details
Forest products preference of rural economic spectrum in the community forests of Nepal
Abstract
Community forestry user groups (CFUGs) are hetrogenious in terms of social and economic conditions, which influencetheir preference and use of tangible forest products (timber, fuel wood, Non Timber Forest Products (NTFPs), fodder and leaf-litter). The study aimed to examine relationship between economic heterogeneity and forest product preference in the community forests based on empirical research in two community forest user groups (CFUGs) of Dolakha District of Central Nepal. The study analyzed preference of forest products among different economic strata (rich, medium, poor and very poor) of the CFUGs by conducting survey of 115 household along with group discussions and key informant interviews. Forest product preferences vary with the economic status of the respondents. Preference for timber increased with the betterment of economic status, whereas the very poor and the poor respondents have higher affinity for fuelwood. No clear distinct pattern was observed in case of NTFPs. Medium and poor class households highly preferred fodder as they owned relatively less farm landandhigh number of domesticated cattle. Results indicates that the users of lowest economic status are deprived of getting maximum benefit from forest management if assessed in terms of economic values of benefits. This is possibly due to their less preference for the most commercially valuable forest product, timber, which is possibly induced by two factors – low household requirement and restriction in commercial utilization. The study agrue for promoting pro-poor benefit distribution mechanism in CFUGs such that equitable sharing of benefits could be ensured.
Adhikari M, S Nagata, Adhikari M. 2004a. Rural household and forest: an evaluation of household’s dependency on community forest in Nepal. Journal of Forest Research 9, 33-44.
Adhikari B, Di Falco S, Lovett JC. 2004b. Household Characteristics and Forest Dependency: Evidence from Common Property Forest Management in Nepal. Ecological Economics 48, 245-257.
Bartlett AG, Malla YB. 1992. Local forest management and forestpolicy in Nepal.Journal of World For Resourse Management 6, 99–116.
Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). 2011. Statistical Year Book. Kathmandu, GoN/National Planning Commission Secretariat, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Chambers R. 1994. The Origins and Practice of Participatory Rural Appraisal. World Development 22(7), 953-969.
Chetri RB, Pandey RT. 1994. User-group forestry in the far westernregion of Nepal: case studies from Baitadi and Achham. ICIMOD,Kathmandu, Nepal
Dev OP, Yadav NP, Springate-Baginski O, Soussan J. 2003. Impacts of community forestry on livelihoods in the middle hills of Nepal.Journal of Forest and Livelihood 3 (1), 64–77.
Edmonds EV. 2002. Government Initiated Community Resource Management and Local Resource Extraction from Nepal’s Forests. Journal of Economics, 68(1), 89-115.
Edwards DM. 1996. Non-Timber Forest Products and Community Forestry: Are they Compatible? BankoJanakari 6(1), 3-8.
Pokharel BK, Paudel D, Gurung BD. 2006. Forests, Community Based Governance and Livelihoods: Insights from the Nepal Swiss Community Forestry Project in Capitalization and Sharing of Experiences on the Interaction between Forest Policies and Land Use Patterns in Asia. Linking People with Resources, Vol. 2: Technical Papers, 53-60. SDC and ICIMOD.
Niraula DR. 2004. Integrating Total Economic Value for Enhancing Sustainable Management of Community Forests: A Forward Looking Approach. In K. R. Kanel et al. (eds.), Twenty Five Years of Community Forestry, Proceeding of Fourth National Community Forestry Workshop, Department of Forest (DoF), Community Forestry Division (CFD) , Kathmandu.
Poudel BS. 2003. The rural poor and the forest resources: socioeconomic heterogeneity, benefit sharing and participation in community forestry in Nepal. Master thesis, Tribhuvan University, Institute of Forestry, Nepal.
Sharma UR. 1992. Park-people interactions in Royal Chitwan National Park.Ph.D dissertation. The University of Arizona
Thoms CA.2008. Community control of resources and the challenge of improving local livelihoods: A critical examination of community forestry in Nepal. Environmental Studies Program and Department of Sociology, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Avenue, Maxey Hall, Walla Walla, WA 99362, USA
Verma DPS. 1988. Fuel and fodder from village woodlots: A Gujarat (India) experience. Agroforestry Systems, 7(1), 77-93.
Yadav NP, Dev OP, Springate-Baginski O, Soussan, J. 2003. Forestmanagement and utilization under community forestry.Journal of Forest and Livelihood 3 (1), 37–50.
Sony Baral, BijendraBasnyat, Kalyan Gauli, 2014. Forest products preference of rural economic spectrum in the community forests of Nepal. J. Biodiv. Environ. Sci., 5(3), 1-8.
Copyright © 2014 by the Authors. This article is an open access article and distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license.