Name: Improved Community Forestry Governance and livelihoods throughParticipatory Action Research in Nepal
Overview of the proposed activities
The Nepalese Community Forestry Programme was initiated 1978 and has gradually
been expanded to cover 1,647,700 households organised in 14,337 Forest User Groups(FUGs) managing in total 1.2 million ha of forest (Pokharel & Byrne 2009). The
programme has been deemed a success as it has enabled grass roots organisations toemerge and take responsibility for forest management (Acharya 2002), often resulting inforest conservation (Gautam et al. 2004). Community forestry has also allowed forest
dependent households to cover their basic needs in terms of firewood and fodder,thereby providing more secure livelihoods. At present the potentials of community
forests for providing local users with benefits from carbon storage (through REDD)
payments is being discussed (e.g. Adhikari 2009). But critical voices have for long beencalling attention to a pressing challenge in relation to community forestry and livelihood
improvement: that marginalized people (especially women and the poor) often receive
disproportionately small shares of benefits from the community forest (Gilmour 2003;Malla et al. 2003). This includes contributions to FUGs from carbon sequestration andbiodiversity protection (ICIMOD, 2008). Faced with the present challenge of turning
community forest management more pro-poor a participatory adaptive collaborative
management approach is suggested for improving the accountability andinclusiveness of community based forest management (Pandit et al. 2009). This
research is targeted to implement in three Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs),
one each of the three ecological regions, one in Terai- plain below 1000 m, one inMiddle hills (1000 m to 2000m) and one in high hills (above 2000m altitude) of Nepal.
2. Objectives
Through participatory action research to promote equitable benefit sharing by providing
research based knowledge to the forest user groups in KAFCOL research site
communities. Specifically:
1e-1 To conduct Participatory Action Research focusing on pro-poor, gender balanced
and equitable intervention design and actions in relation to community based forest
management
1e-2 To carry out evaluation of ex-post action research situation and suggest
recommendations for pro-poor community forestry governance and policyimprovements.
Hypotheses
A social learning process informed by research output can contribute to pro-poorcommunity forest management and benefit distribution through local level deliberation.
Research Methods and Activities
A series of steps are involved in the Participatory Action Research approach that gofrom identification of participants through to evaluation of the outcomes.

1Firstly, the researchers identify relevant information, in this case partly by synthesisingexisting research results from the ComForM long-term sites. Then multi-stakeholder
meetings are conducted in the long-term research site communities to identify
stakeholder groups and identify starting point for the PAR study. An inception workshop
is organised for researchers and community members to agree on the research plan.
Formats for collection of baseline information (on the degree of social inclusion, poverty,
the environment and the level of equity in forest management) are developed.
Secondly, a participatory baseline assessment is conducted among long-term researchcommunity households based on stratified random selection; stratification by wealth,
livelihood strategy, household head gender). Key informant and focus group interviews
are conducted for assessing social, natural, and financial outcomes of forest
management, the heterogeneity of the stakeholders, the existing governance structure(resource and power use), and resulting implications for various stakeholder groups,including the dependence on forest benefits. An important part of this process is tomake explicit the governance mechanisms and power structures in CFUG processes(information flow and services to the poor). Multi-stakeholder meetings are organised for
discussing outcomes of the activites.
Thirdly, an evaluation of changes in consequence of the PAR process is conducted andcompared with the baseline information. The evaluation is discussed with stakeholders.
Clusters to be allocatedThis collaborative proposal basically uses three cluster areas that include: (i) Cluster 1Knowledge facilitation; (ii) cluster 2-Policy research and (iii) Cluster 5- On-the- Groundactivites.
IPSI member organisations to be involved
The Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation (MoFSC), Nepal will be the collaborative
partner for implementation of collaborative activities. In addition, we invite any of theagencies of Japan including the Ministry of Environment of Japan (MoEJ) to be thecollaborative partner. This proposal has been already shared with Nepal partner.
Time Frame2011 Multi-stakeholder meetings, entry points identification (possible entry pointsClimate change and ecotourism, community based NTFP enterprize development andothers as per need2012 Inception workshop, baseline assessments, key informant and focus group
discussion
2013 Present governance analysis results and assess changes, evaluate the study.
publishing2

Expected outputs and impacts
The research communities trained in the PAR process implement the principles toimprove governance practices to the benefit of marginalised forest users. The project’s
learning on application of the pro-poor PAR approach with special emphasis onenvironment, poverty, gender and governance is analysed and documented as acontribution to the development of the PAR methodology.

References
Acharya, K. P. 2002. Twenty-four years of community forestry in Nepal. International Forestry Review 4:
149-156.
Adhikari, B. 2009. Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation: some issues andconsiderations. Journal of Forest Livelihood 8: 14-24.
Gautam,, A.P., Shivakoti, G.P., Webb, E.L. 2004. Forest cover change, physiography, local economy,and institutions in a mountain watershed in Nepal. Environmental Management 33: 48-61.
Gilmour, D. 2003. Retrospective and prospective view of community forestry in Nepal. Journal of Forestand Livelihood 2: 5-7.
Malla, Y.B., Neupane, H.R., Branney, P.J. 2003. Why aren’t poor people benefitting more from
Community Forestry? Journal of Forest and Livelihood 3: 78-93.
ICIMOD, 2008. The case of the Hindu Kush-Mountain – ICIMOD’s positions on climate change andmountain system. Mountain Research and Development. Vol 28 Page no 3-4.
Lee Sohng S.S. 2005. Participatory research approach: Some key concepts. In Julian et al. 2005,
Participatory Research and Development for Sustainable Agriculture and Natural ResourceManagement. A source book Vol 1-PP 75-80.
Pandit, BH; McDaugall, C; Belcher, B; Kumar, C; Maharhan, M (2009). Creating Space: the Efforts of an
Adaptive Collaborative Management (ACM) Approach on Leveraging Poor People’s Access,Rights and Benefits from Community Based Forest Enterprises in Eastern Nepal. In Fisher, B;
Veer, C; Mahanty, S (Eds.) Proceedings of International Conference on Poverty Reduction andForests- Tenure, Reforms and Policy Reforms. RECOFTC, Bangkok, Thailand, Paper # 22.
Pokharel, B.K. and Byrne, S. 2009. Climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies in Nepal’s forest
sector: how can rural communities benefit? NSCFP Discussion Paper 7. Nepal Swiss Community
Forestry Project, Kathmandu.

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