Collective action of local communities in forest conservation and utilisation: Critical reflections from Nepalese Community Forestry

Collective action by local communities has increasingly been recognised as crucial for effective management of natural resources, particularly the management of forests in the rural settings. This recognition is principally based on the universal and often unquestioned assumption that the involvement of local communities in the management of forests can improve the forest condition and utilisation. There are, however, limited studies indicating that collective action by local communities has significantly improved the condition of forests. Most studies often fail to critically analyse how and why the condition of forests have improved (or have been destroyed), and what are the implications of such improvement for local communities. An important confusion exists on whether the utilisation of forests under community forest management has been optimal or even significant in terms of meeting the needs of local people and contributing to local community development. By combining qualitative and quantitative methods, this study analyses issues of forest conservation and utilisation in three Forest Users Groups (FUGs) from Nepalese community forestry (CF), which is often considered as one of the most progressive examples of collective action of local communities in forest management. The findings from the case studies indicate that compared with the highly degraded forests from which most community forests have started, the conditions of forests have significantly improved. However, the improved forests may not be ideal in terms of biodiversity conservation because of the communities being selective in retaining only preferred species. Further, there are limited benefits from the forests in terms of meeting the needs of local people and contributing to community development. This occurs for two underlying reasons. Firstly, not all improved forests are at the stage to supply sufficient and suitable forest products to all forest users. The popular assumption of the improved forests being able to meet local needs and produce surplus forest products which can be sold and generate income for community development, is seriously flawed. Secondly, forests are underutilised as the harvest of forest products is far less than what is available. The underutilisation has mainly been influenced by politics of forest management that deprives local users obtaining and exercising a real authority to harvest forest products. The powerful actors both within and beyond the local communities control the forest use to ensure conservation, thereby the poor users who are mostly dependent on forest resources, are worse off under community forestry. In order to achieve sustainable conservation and utilization of forest resources managed collectively by local communities, the paper concludes by emphasising that the genuine power to make meaningful decisions on conservation and utilisation of forests should be devolved to local level, and further devolution is required within local communities. For this, conventional forest policy making and implementation processes need major rethinking on the ways issues of conservation, utilisation and equity are identified, understood and actions proposed to address them.