CAN COMMUNITY FORESTRY PLAY A MAJOR ROLE IN THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC ENHANCEMENT OF POOR USERS IN NEPAL
Keywords:
community forestry, greenery, income, participation, poor users, socio-economicAbstract
Nepal is increasingly gaining world-wide recognition in participatory forestry and natural resource management, primarily through “Community Forestry” program which has a well documented history over three decades. This study was carried out in Tibrekot Community Forestry in Nepal focused on the local poor forest users with the objective to find out the changes brought by the community forestry in the socio-economic enhancement of local forest users, to analyze the level of participation in community forestry management activities and to assess the ecological/economical aspects of the forest. The Participatory Rural Appraisal tools were used to collect the data from sampled households, key informants interview and interaction with different organizations involved in the forestry sectors in the study area. Data were collected using household interview, semi-structured questionnaires, interview schedule and checklists; and data were inserted and analyzed in MS Excel 2007 sheet and in SPSS 17 (Statistical Package for Social Sciences). The chi-square test at 5% level of significant was applied as well. The findings showed that the forest users’ participation in meetings and discussion and other activities like community forestry management, silvicultural operation related to community forestry was high. Likewise, it was found that the forest contributes 20% in the total income of the forest users. It also showed that the greenery has improved, water sources have restored back and environment of the surrounding has improved a lot after handing over the forest to the users in the study area.
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