Community Forestry - a worthwhile partnership

NEPAL: The outstanding achievements in community forestry over the past 40 years are testament to a flexible and enduring working relationship between Nepal and Australia.

The forestry partnership began in the early 1960s. As the city populations of the Kathmandu Valley demanded more timber for fuel, pressure mounted to reforest the surrounding hills. Australian technical expertise helped the Government of Nepal's Department of Forestry to raise thousands of seedlings. By the end of the first decade 15,000 hectares were reforested.

From the outset one lesson was clear - community participation was vital for success. Indeed, the Nepal-Australia Forestry and Community Resource Management Project is the story of community forestry in Nepal.

It's also a story that divides into four discrete phases.

Phase 1 (1960 to mid 1970s): The technical groundwork is largely accomplished.

Phase 2 (late 1970 to mid 1980s): Many of the elements of a viable community forestry system are established, plus large-scale infrastructure, including the first road. Almost 100 community-run tree seedling nurseries are set up and some 5,000 hectares of forest land is handed over to communities. Demarcating boundaries and tree planting begin in earnest. Great efforts are made to ensure the poor benefit.

Phase 3 (late 1980s to mid 1990s): Known as the social decade, the emphasis is on social and gender equity, community development, sustainability and self-reliance through community forestry. Especially after 1990, this phase sees a shift from larger administrative units to smaller, more truly community-managed groups. These are known as community forest user groups' - or CFUGs - which, with the project's support, venture into viable small-scale business enterprises. Income generating activities include using forest resources to make craft and wares.

Phase 4 (late 1990s to 2006): Final stage. Around 2000, some 27 000 hectares of forest are handed over to nearly 700 community forest user groups. Around this time there is also a name change to reflect a move from pure forestry' to community resource management' and, finally, to include livelihoods'.There's an awareness that second generation community forestry issues are moving away from the protection ethic of reforestation towards sustainable and equitable use of forest resources.

Throughout the past four decades, Nepal and Australia have worked closely together and jointly invested over $40 million to train workers and provide solid technical, social, business, and policy foundations for community forestry. It's been a tremendous partnership, acknowledged and celebrated by both governments.

At a ceremony to commemorate its value Australia's former Deputy Prime Minister, Tim Fischer, said it was arguably the most significant and successful achievement of the aid program. But, without doubt, the most outstanding feature has been the partnership between the Nepalese forest people and the governments of Nepal and Australia.

The project has now ended, but the legacy of 40 years of investment is evident at all levels - from community user groups, through to district and national levels. There are now eight million members of community forestry groups, including four million women.

Hundreds of community forest user groups are developing their forest areas well beyond mere subsistence. Through practical business development, they're poised to convert surplus yields from their natural resources into income. Extra income will be reinvested into other initiatives and businesses, raising further capital to benefit forest user groups - for example, by financing such improvements to rural life as better equipment or housing.

Following this direction, it's easy to see how community forest user groups can play a major role in reducing rural poverty in Nepal.

For more detailed information on the Australia Nepal Community Forestry project see our publication Recovering Shangri La: The partnership in community forestry between Nepal and Australia 1966-2006

Top: Members of a community forest user group planting improved fodder species beneath the recently 'opened-up' canopy of their community forest.

Note: This and other stories about Australia's aid program can be found in AusAID's Focus Magazine

January 2007