Responses to risk have been insufficiently incorporated into sustainable development pathways. Development interventions can both generate new socio-ecological risks and fail to mitigate the risks experienced by rural communities. We analyse perceptions of socio-ecological risks within community forest user group households in Bagmati province in central Nepal across a three-year period. Community forestry has successfully returned the forest to the middle hills of Nepal, helping to mitigate landslide risks and conserve biodiversity, but other risks are being produced and reinforced within the forest as it transitions. Households are becoming less active in community forest management and are accessing smaller percentages of their income from agriculture and forestry. At the same time, wild animal and wildfire risks are increasing. Climate change is seen to be a key driver of a range of new risks in association with the forest. Perceived household food self-sufficiency has declined recently within all municipalities, with increasingly high levels of households going into debt to support food security. People are valuing the forest for the ecosystem services they provide, including improving biodiversity, supporting subsistence agriculture and stabilising landscapes, but most respondents were not using the forest either to mitigate food insecurity or generate financial incomes. Forests must be managed to continue to be part of the solution, not the problem. As new levels of risk become apparent, knowledge of risk perceptions and interactions with the forest need to be integrated reflexively within policy and practice to guide sustainable development outcomes.

Accurate estimation of tree and log volume plays a pivotal role in a wide range of applications within the field of forestry, especially in biomass assessment and forest management. The effectiveness and applicability of formulas for volume estimation have recently become a topic of extensive deliberation among forestry officials and a diverse array of stakeholders. This study conducts a comparative analysis between the Huber and allometric equation with the Quarter girth formula and a formula based on form factor to estimate the volume of standing trees and logs. Field measurements of 168 felled trees in coupes and randomly selected 1192 logs were examined in this study. The findings of the study revealed a decrease of approximately 0.8% in timber volume and a substantial increase of 78.6% in firewood volume while adopting the allometric equation when compared to the formula based on form factor. Similarly, the application of Huber's formula resulted in a 27.34% increase in volume compared to the Quarter girth formula. ANOVA demonstrated highly significant differences in the average volume per tree among the four formulas (p value = 0.00004) for both standing tree and log volume, and further analysis using Tukey's HSD indicated that the Quarter girth and form factor-based formula for standing trees differed significantly from the allometric equation for standing timber, while other formula combinations did not show significant differences. Timber losses in the felling and bucking stage with the Quarter girth and Huber formula were 37.06% and 19.86%, respectively. Moreover, paired t-test at 5% level of significance revealed that there was a significant loss in both tree felling using both formulas.

Farmers in the middle hills of Nepal have been abandoning agricultural land over the last three decades due to complex socio-ecological drivers and dynamics. A consequence of this shift is the succession of forest. Naturally regenerating tree species, and farmers' opinions of species benefits, were assessed with field measurements and interviews to guide an analysis of the socio-ecological factors that influence forest succession. Non-linear patterns of species abundance and diversity suggest that intermediate levels of disturbance lead to higher rates of biodiversity than either high or low management interventions within regenerating forest patches. Farmers that practice no or low levels of disturbance exhibit little investment or perceived benefits from their land beyond occasional fodder collection, while high forest disturbance is motivated primarily by activities within the succeeding forest that generate income. Intermediate disturbance patterns in succeeding forests mimic traditional farming practices in Nepal, utilising trees within the mosaic landscape for livelihood purposes. The local heterogenic agro-ecosystems are also associated with higher species diversity. Policy to support the maintenance or enhancement of forest succession on formerly cultivated cropland could contribute to higher species diversity and build adaptive capacity of rural households during landscape transitions.

There are significant changes in rural livelihoods as Nepali society passes through an agrarian transition. Understanding those changes is fundamental to guiding approaches to support communities to generate sustainable development pathways and to adapt to risk. The socio-ecological research examines how community forests are used by different household groups across the mid-hills of central Nepal. Results from a quantitative survey of community forest user group members suggest that households are increasingly reliant on off-farm/forest activities. While the forest remains important for subsistence activities, including providing fodder and mulch to support agroforestry, households are less actively managing or utilising community forests. As rural societies evolve and people become less immediately dependent on their local environments, policy will need to adjust to support complex agroforestry systems for multiple direct livelihood benefits. Socio-economic and demographic structural changes are important determinant factors in driving a divergence in the direct use values of the forest. Knowledge of complex local socio-ecological situations can guide multifunctional natural resource management outcomes that provide unique pathways for different types of households reliant on subsistence agroforestry and commercial harvesting activities. Without such knowledge of changing local environmental management needs, the evolving relationships between communities and their natural resources are likely to remain important, largely overlooked drivers of policy complexity within developing countries during agrarian transitions.

Out-migration from small-scale agricultural holdings in Nepal’s middle hills is resulting in forest succession on abandoned land. Such early landscape transitions are often guided by policy to maintain a productivist path. However, farming households in rural Nepal are themselves transitioning from their dependence and attachment to the land. The walk and talk methodology was selected to follow up socioecological surveys with farmers in the middle hills to understand perceptions of forest succession on abandoned agricultural land. This participatory research methodology engages people in their own socio-ecological context – with farmers leading researchers along paths that advances dialogue over the course of the interview. Based on analysis of the discussions and observations of attitudes, perceptions of changing landuse and benefits associated with forest succession evolved with time since land abandonment. Early stage perceptions that focused on the loss of previously productive land developed over time to include attitudes of tolerance, acceptance and even commendation of the rewards gained from tree resources. The results infer that adaptation to the changing landscape is a continuous process that requires reflexive policies and supporting institutions that enable stages of adjustment during transition. Transition management that anticipates actors’ concerns from the outset could assist transformation of agricultural landscapes and improve resilience in the socio-ecological system for sustainable livelihood outcomes. Opportunities within each stage of transition, which include the promotion of successional agroforestry systems, require different forms of support as farmers adapt their outlooks to alternative landscapes and livelihoods that can create resilience through diversity.

Nepal's community forestry is well studied and widely acknowledged, but its experience of Community Forestry Enterprises (CFEs) as a form of community entrepreneurship has not been part of a robust scholarly debate. While CFEs are considered a means to enhance community livelihoods and reduce poverty, a growing body of literature suggests that it is difficult to establish, grow and sustain economically profitable and socially beneficial CFEs. Across the developing world, many CFEs have emerged, functioned for certain periods of time, and then disappeared. In view of this, several conceptual questions have been raised about the viability and sustainability of CFEs. The aim of this paper is to investigate why CFEs fail and what could make them succeed. By analyzing the Chaubas-Bhumlu Community Sawmill of Nepal (hereafter, Chaubas CFE), this paper demonstrates that CFEs do not necessarily become successful, despite good access to natural resources, reasonable business plans, and significant start-up capital and support from external stakeholders. The Chaubas CFE struggled to sustain the enterprise in the face of changing government policies and politics, persistent conflictual community level dynamics, and the lack of local business capacity. We argue that the confidence on communities to engage in the business of natural resources is not well founded, especially in the context of complex social, political, and environmental realities that underpin business development and operation.

There are only limited policy levers that governments can use to facilitate sustainable development within remote rural communities. Often marginalised communities are almost uniquely dependent on the exploitation of local natural resources to generate livelihoods. We examine how formal education, both of household heads and more broadly across households, influences perceived opportunities for the conception, management and utilisation of community forests in the mid-hills of Nepal. As societies transition, more sophisticated economies will require education to facilitate effective natural resource management. New challenges are emerging for community forestry as a result. The quantitative socio-ecological data analysis suggests that while the roles of community forests are evolving, education is key to household participation in commercial opportunities. Formal education in the household is shown to be associated with a greater recognition of the importance of the commercialisation of forest timber and food products, and the desire to participate in further commercial forest activities. Education in the household also provides respondents with a more sophisticated understanding of new opportunities, ecosystem services and risks associated with the forest, and the abilities to actively manage the forest and influence planning. Formal education empowers people to become local experts in forest management and participate in new opportunities that forests provide. Any failure to examine household education levels may be neglecting key sociological data on the importance of education for sustainable development outcomes. In the rural margins of the mid-hills of Nepal there are opportunities for further aligning formal education with forestry policy.

Multipurpose and ecological forest management frameworks are being increasingly applied across the Global North on public lands. However, the discourse and practice of public forest management in much of the developing world are captured by extreme approaches of single-crop (usually timber) production and strict canopy-cover protection, as exemplified by the case of Nepal. We combine insights from field research with published documents and trace the consequences of prevalent management regimes on the ecology and silviculture of Nepal’s public forests. We find that managing for either extreme of timber production or forest protection can degrade forest ecosystems and affect their capacity to address the increasing number of demands placed on them. A history of narrow management outlooks has erased indigenous silvicultural practices and discouraged the development of novel silvicultural solutions to address today’s environmental concerns. Government initiatives advancing singular objectives, such as Nepal’s Scientific Forest Management program, often crumble under political resistance. Forest users in Nepal are widely interested in generating diverse benefits from their forests, including non-commercial products and services, suggesting a mandate for multipurpose management. We present a decentralized adaptive modality of multipurpose management featuring a silviculture that more closely matches the ecology of forests.

Operational plans are a key element in community forestry in Nepal. However, the relevance of these plans to forest user groups (FUGs) is under scrutiny. This study investigates the usefulness of operational plans against the backdrop of knowledge, capacity and management practices of FUGs. Data were collected from 13 operational plans, 16 group discussions involving forestry professionals, and 218 household interviews in two villages of Lamjung district in Nepal. Whereas operational plans should specifically reflect site specific objectives and activities of forest management, the survey revealed identical objectives across the community forests. Current operational plans are technically complex, poorly linked to the place-based context of livelihood needs and less useful to the FUGs to inform and enhance forest management. This study proposes to differentiate community forests according to their production potentials, and revise the operational plans by shortening the elements that have little or no relevance to the FUGs.

Whether and how science can improve public policy is a highly contested topic in both the scholarly domains and the world of policy and practice. The research community often finds itself frustrated over the continued neglect of research evidence by policy makers. At the same time, policy makers see researchers as addressing their own questions of curiosity, and not those of concern to policy makers. In the context of this ongoing research-policy divide, this paper presents experimental work on the research-policy linkage conducted in Nepal's forest sector. The insights presented here emerged from applying what is increasingly known as the "Policy Lab" methodology. We designed and operationalised this method to facilitate policy uptake of research on forestry and food security within the context of community forestry governance in the country. The method comprised facilitating the two-way interaction between the research team and policy actors. Underpinning this method were six Policy Lab events organized during 2014-2019 as part of an action research project aiming to enhance livelihoods and food security of local communities in the Nepalese hills. We found that Policy Lab methodology, if organized using the suggested principles, can help improve the much-needed link between research and policy. The study has also exposed new issues of concern that merit attention at the science-policy interface.

The use of biochar in agroforestry practices is a new concept in Nepal. The soil application of biochar is a promising alternative to increase productivity and reduce chemical fertilizers. To test this concept, an action research project was implemented in two villages of Lamjung district in the middle hills of Nepal. This study aimed at assessing the productivity and livelihood impacts of a banana-based agroforestry system with and without biochar-based fertilization. Biochar was used in one village while another village served as the control (with Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium – NPK application, but no biochar). The information obtained from 111 household surveys was verified and tested through five farmers’ field trials. The paper investigates the effect of different fertilizers on banana yields and its contributions on poverty reduction. The result of the study shows that the banana yield increased by 41 per cent in the plots treated with urine-biochar plus compost compared to the control with conventional NPK fertilization; and more than doubled (102%) compared to the fertilization with compost only. Findings also revealed that the poverty level of respondent households using biochar dropped by 30 per cent (from 66% to 36%) in Dhamilikuwa (biochar village) and dropped by 19 per cent (from 40% to 21%) in JitaTaxar (control village). The study implies that the use of biochar in banana-based agroforestry system has the potential for increasing soil productivity and reducing poverty, thereby revitalising agrarian economy of many Nepali villages. A wider replication of this study is therefore recommended, together with enabling public policies to support this practice.

Despite an ostensibly conducive policy environment in Nepal, community forest management has stagnated at a suboptimal level in delivery of the benefits stipulated in operational plans. This study assesses the current state of forest management against the backdrop of locally relevant factors that influence management strategies in 13 community forests in the mid hill region of Nepal. It adopts a mixed-method approach utilizing data collected from forest inventory and operational plans of these community forests, household survey and focus group discussions. The results reveal that the current state of forest management is very basic and largely confined to bush cutting and removal of low quality trees. We identified three primary factors influencing user groups’ motivation to enhance forest management, namely: livelihood dependency on forests; forest incomes and benefits; and the capacity to technical forest management. Accordingly, there is a low incentive to adopt silvicultural systems to manage forests. Even though timber is considered as the main source of income, its production is constrained by terrain condition, regulatory procedures, accessibility to road and market and inadequate capacity to undertake silviculture-based forest management. The study concludes that the current level of benefits is insufficient to stimulate forest user groups to enhance forest management. We suggest policy imperatives that: (1) promote enterprise-based forest management to increase forest-based incomes; and (2) adopt collaborative action research to experiment and demonstrate beneficial effects of silvicultural systems to increase forest productivity.

About half of the households in the mid-hills of Nepal are severely food insecure, and the development of agriculture and forestry sectors could hold keys to reduce food insecurity and achieve other sustainable development goals. This paper presents results from a bio-economic model, Enhancing Livelihood from Improved Forest Management in Nepal (EnLiFT), that estimates a Food Security Index (FSI) across six household types in rural Nepal simulating selected agroforestry livelihood interventions. The FSI is calculated as the ratio between household expenditure capacity and household poverty threshold based on the national per capita poverty threshold. Market-oriented timber production shows strong potential to increase food security across all household types with greater benefits accruing to land-rich households. For land-poor households, remittances from household members working abroad remains the strongest route to their food security despite the underutilisation of agricultural land due to adult male labour outmigration. A drawback of market-oriented timber production is the long-term nature of timber production. As EnLiFT assumes that timber can only be harvested from Year 9, complimentary livelihood strategies are required to address food insecurity in the short term. Complimentary agroforestry interventions with the strongest potential to improve food security include combined high-yielding fodder production and commercial goat production, and production of non-timber forest products. Commercial vegetable production does not improve food security because of the high input costs. Currently, farmers in Nepal cannot yet fully obtain the financial benefits of agroforestry due to the complex and unsupportive forestry regulations surrounding harvesting and marketing of planted trees. While land-poor households are seen to rely on foreign remittances for food security, it is argued that policies encouraging use of remittances to promote agroforestry businesses is needed.

The expansion of community forestry practices since the late 1970s and, recently, outmigration have led forest cover to increase in Nepal's mid-hills catchments (>52% of the 4.3 million ha). The catchments traditionally provide food and income for local communities, and they are increasingly important for ecological functions, particularly downstream water use. While the hydrological effects of increasing forest cover are generally unclear in the mid-hills region, mismatched perceptions of forest–water relationships between sections of Nepalese society and scientists challenge the management of the catchments in meeting traditional community needs and growing water demand sustainably. This paper shows the prevalence of the culturally formed notion of “more forest–more water” within broader Nepalese society and the conservation-centric attitude of forest policymakers, who focus on reforestation and afforestation. These perceptions contradict general scientific evidence that shows forest development reduces catchment water yield. Conversely, the results of semistructured interviews (n =150) conducted among members of community forest user groups (CFUGs) in the Roshi Khola catchment of the mid-hills district Kavre showed that 44% of respondents consider that forests contribute to increased water quantity, and 37% think forests decrease it. Furthermore, the respondents that viewed forests as reducing water quantity disliked pine forests because these allegedly caused the reduction. Interestingly, there was a positive correlation between the duration of membership in the CFUG and the perception that forests increase water. Thus, while there is a high research need to understand the forest–water relationships in the mid-hills, extensive communication of research results and deliberation about them are crucial to developing widely acceptable plans for managing the catchments. This is particularly important in the context of expanding community forestry practices and the current debate on scientific forestry presented by Nepal's key forestry documents, including the Forestry Sector Strategy 2016–2025 and Forest Policy 2019.

In recent years, there has been a growing realization that improving market access for smallholders will lead to improvement in income and food security. However, market failure often limit smallholders’ fair access to market opportunities. To address this problem, a market-oriented agroforestry action research program was implemented in six sites of Kavre and Lamjung districts of Nepal between 2013 and 2016. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the changing impacts of the market-oriented agroforestry system on improving people’s livelihoods and addressing food security issues. The net-margin analysis of five priority products of agroforestry systems indicated that farmers benefitted most by a banana-based high yielding fodder system (56%) followed by Alnus-cardamom system (48%), tomato-fodder and buffalo (36%), chilli-fodder (26%) and ginger-based (25%) systems due to facilitation of market-oriented agroforestry action research services. The impact of market-oriented agroforestry intervention from a survey of 289 households, revealed that household income was increased by 37–48%, which can provide up to six additional months of food to the poorest households. This innovation has the potential to take the majority of households (63%) out of the poverty cycle while avoiding food shortage during the year. The implications of the study are that farmers must be united for collective marketing of their production and develop marketing strategies to eliminate middle men for better return. Some key lessons learned for the success of this research include farmers’ own motivation, favorable environment, and the inclusion of social activities and incentives for cultivating priority products species.

Farmers in Nepal mid-hills have practiced agroforestry for generations as main source or supplement of timber, firewood and fodder from government forests. The nature and extent of agroforestry practice is being challenged by rapid social and economic change particularly in the recent rise of labour out-migration and remittance income. Understanding is required of the critical factors that influence farmers in the way they adapt agroforestry to their circumstances. This paper analyses the relationship of households’ livelihood resources and agroforestry practice to identify trajectories of agroforestry adaptation to improve livelihood outcomes. Using data from a survey of 668 households, it was found that landholding, livestock holding and geographic location of farmers are key drivers for agroforestry adaptation. A multinomial logistic regression model showed that in addition to these variables, household income, household-remittance situation (whether the household is receiving remittance or not) and caste influence adaptation of agroforestry practice. The analysis indicates that resource-poor households are more likely to adapt to terraced-based agroforestry while resource-rich households adapt to woodlot agroforestry. Appropriate agroforestry interventions are: (1) develop simple silvicultural regimes to improve the quality and productivity of naturally-regenerating timber on under-utilised land; (2) develop a suite of tree and groundcover species that can be readily integrated within existing terrace-riser agroforestry practices; (3) acknowledge the different livelihood capitals of resource-poor and resource-rich groups and promote terrace-riser and woodlot agroforestry systems respectively to these groups; and (4) develop high-value fodder production systems on terrace-riser agroforestry, and also for non-arable land. The analysis generates important insights for improving agroforestry policies and practices in Nepal and in many developing countries.

Silviculture trial plots were established in Kavre and Lamjung districts by the EnLiFT Project (Enhancing livelihoods and food security through improved agroforestry and community forestry in Nepal) to examine stand response to selected silviculture systems – uniform shelterwood, selection system, and negative thinning and as a showcase to forest users for these silviculture systems. This paper analyses the extent of canopy gaps on these trial plots after one-year of application of silviculture treatments and regeneration development. Using crown photographs, crown cover was estimated and compared between silviculture systems. The analysis showed that rigid silviculture systems like shelterwood and selection systems created canopy gap larger than negative thinning in Pine plantations and the rate of natural regeneration was directly related with the canopy gap. However, in Shorea robusta-Castanopsis- Schima (Sal-Katus-Chilaune) forest, negative thinning created canopy gap larger than selection system due to removal of 4-D trees, majority of trees were Schima wallichii (Chilaune), which typically have large spreading crown. Although, it may be too early to conclude the relationship between regeneration development and canopy gap from the trial plots, it became clear that silviculture operations have significant role in promoting higher regeneration. Selection and shelterwood systems are better than current silviculture regime represented by negative thinning in this study. Banko JanakariA Journal of Forestry Information for Nepal Special Issue No. 4, 2018, Page: 98-103

There is growing interest by forest users, government forest officers and policy makers on maximising forest goods and livelihood provisions from community forestry in a sustainable manner. However, the way several mature community forests are currently managed based on selection, e.g. negative thinning and crown thinning, is questionable as it results to decline in forest stock, timber quality and regeneration. To assist forest users in managing their community forests, an action research was implemented in Kavre and Lamjung to manage planted Pine (Pinus spp.) and naturally regenerated Sal (Shorea robusta) through selection system. This paper describes the q-factor and its relevance for sustainable community forest management in Nepal. The simple guideline for selection system introduced to 30 community forest users groups in six sites are presented for wider adoption and policy recommendation.Banko JanakariA Journal of Forestry Information for NepalSpecial Issue No. 4, 2018, Page: 104-112

This paper focuses on the participatory market chain analysis of agroforestry products in six sites of two districts (Kavre and Lamjung) of Nepal. In total, 93 market actors were involved in the study, in which 80 persons were purposively selected from Local Resource Person (LRP) and Local Resource Group (LRG) members and 13 persons were randomly selected from the local, district and national level traders. Primary data on agroforestry products was collected through Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools following several field visits. Fourteen agroforestry products in Lamjung and 20 agroforestry products in Kavrepalanchok district were selected for analysis. The findings showed that small-scale production and insufficient service to farmers from the village level agriculture collection centers and cooperatives are the major constraints to effective and efficient market chain development and management. The main factors responsible for increasing the production of agroforestry products are the rise in awareness among LRPs/ LRGs about agroforestry practices along with institutional and policy development to facilitate the marketing of agroforestry products. The paper concludes by highlighting the controlling factors in agroforestry business. Banko JanakariA Journal of Forestry Information for NepalVol. 27, No. 2, 2017, page: 32-45