Socio-economic outcomes of community forestry in Nepal: Lessons from three diverse rural communities

Investment in community forestry on creating positive bio-physical changes may not lead to similarly positive social or well-being outcomes. Indeed, in some circumstances, investment in the bio-physical dimension of community forestry may be at the expense of desired social outcomes, and can even entrench social inequity at the local level.2. CFUGs are useful institutions for local community development and forest governance but these institutions often lack equity in regard to committee membership, decision-making and capacity building. Profound changes to the distribution of funds generated by CFUG's, priority projects and implementation strategies may not occur until poorer members of village communities can engage more actively the decision-making processes of CFUGs and local elites are prepared to relinquish unfair power. 3. An increase in population alone does not necessarily lead to deforestation, as the causal relationship between these two phenomena is complex, and varied in any given situation. This research revealed that despite a growing population, with good forest governance and inclusive enterprise development, poverty can be reduced and forest condition improved. Although Nepal's community forest management policies are still largely constructed on the basis of forest conservation (i.e., preventing deforestation), some mature CFUGs have moved beyond this paradigm into advanced enterprise development. Community forestry policy also needs to evolve so to be more supportive of pro-poor enterprise development and proactive in enabling marginalised people to benefit.