Part III: Nepal’s Community Forest

Nepal’s national forest land handed to local communities has been praised internationally. It is considered a success story of forest regenration. 

However, Nepal’s forest regeneration has a complex condition that is affected by Nepalese culture and migration patterns. 

In reality, unlike in the past when people would happily take forest products, at present people are no longer interested in forest products even if it is delivered to them for free. 

Locals don’t need firewood much anymore.  Due to better road networks and a steady flow of remittances, locals have shifted from fuel wood to fossil fuel. 

The branches may not have been very desirable but timber remains a major product that is still smuggled. 

On March 6, 2020, the Division Forest Office in Kapilvastu granted permission to Shringighat Community Forest (the largest community forest in Kapilvastu district) Consumers Group to cut down 27 trees (508 cubic feet of wood) from the community forest. 

On May 28, 2020, the government ordered forest offices to keep the logs inside the forest until further notice. On January 27, 2021, the government scrapped the decision and started to transport logs that were cut and recorded from the forest areas to the field depots.

Forest technicians then conducted a field measurement of the logs at the field depot. The timber logs were found missing when the technicians were measuring logs. 

The logs might have gone missing while they were being transported to the field depot or inside the forest. 

The Community Forest Consumer Committee kept the incident hidden but after some forest employees disclosed the information, the incident came to light- 939,44 cubic feet of logs were missing. 

The committee submitted its preliminary report recently stating that logs were stolen from the community forest but it does not mention how and from where the logs were stolen nor does it state who is responsible for the incident. 

The stolen logs cost around Rs. 700,000 based on the minimum rate fixed while selling the timber to consumers. However, the market price is more than threefold.

The government imposed a ban on the collection, transportation, and sale of timber from the community forest which has made timber theft widespread. 

Similarly, in Tilahar Sakhar Salleri Community Forest in Tansen Municipality-11 illegal smuggling of timber caused the detention of Ganesh Prasad Ghimire chairman of the Forest Consumers’ Committee as well as its treasurer Amar Bahadur Pun, and trader Nabin Ghimire in connection with the incident. 

The committee was permitted to cut 2,074 cubic feet of timber but it tore down 5,600 cubic feet of timber, cutting down an additional 3,526 cubic feet .

The government permitted chopping of trees first and then banned the sale and distribution of the timber which has caused 3000 cubic feet of saal timber to decay in 92 community forests. 

In Nepal, in 1992 there was only 26% of forest coverage, which grew to 45% in 2016 while Nepal is forced to rely on timber imported from other countries. 

As climate change and temperatures increase, the forests have become drier, and without the forest being appropriately thinned; the forest fire has harmed both wildlife and human settlements. 

Due to legal issues, Nepal has not been able to take advantage of its forest resources. As wildlife conservation and forest growth in Nepal, the human-wildlife conflict has also increased.

These have caused humans to fall into the poverty trap and be forced to migrate which will be discussed in our next blog.