Seeing the Forest and the Trees
The Nepal Australia Community Forestry Project

Case Study

Nepal is a small country located between India and China. Its rugged hills and valleys are home to a range of forest types created by variations in altitude, landform, climate and thousands of years of human activity. Nepali people have long used forests as sources of:

• food
• clean water
• medicinal plants
• aromatic plants
• timber for building and tools
• fuelwood for cooking and heating
• charcoal for forging iron implements
• fodder for cattle and goats
• leaf matter for animal bedding
• leaf matter , mixed with manure, for compost

Because of Nepal's poverty, high population growth rate and lengthy human history, its forests have been severely over-harvested. Today, many valleys and hills are treeless and eroded.

In the early 1960's, the Government of Nepal asked the Australian Government to help reforest the Kathmandu Valley. The first program began with Australian advisers supervising the planting of acacias, eucalypts, and pines to bind soils and provide essential forest products and services. Though plantations solved the immediate problem of deforestation and erosion, the program did not consider the local environmental, social or economic conditions. In some places, the plantations drew heavily on underground water or upset ecosystems. Local people were often told what to do, had little involvement in information sharing and decision-making, and consequently felt little ownership of the programs. Also, because immediate problems of poverty were not being addressed, the people had no option but to continue over-using the forests.

In the mid 1970s, a new program called the Nepal Australia Community Forestry Project began focussing on people as well as trees. Forest User Groups at village community level were given responsibility for small local nurseries and reforestation programs. Community groups designed their projects based on their own special conditions and needs. In one approach the local area was divided in to several smaller allotments, with only one allotment able to be cut per year. The allotment was then left to regenerate, either naturally or through composting schemes. Indigenous forestry knowledge was revived.

The links between wise management of forest resources and community development became apparent. Communities remained interested in the project because basic needs for products, cash and essential services were being met.

Today, over 300 Forest User Groups in two project regions collect income from forest products, membership fees and fines for inappropriate forest use, and government subsidies. A range of services and activities have been funded through the project, including:

• wells and pumps for clean water
• schools
• connection to electricity
• roads
• irrigation schemes
• lights for evening literacy programs
• safer and more efficient domestic cooking stoves
• low interest loans to help members start businesses
• increased spice production
• increased Lokta production
• a pilot saw mill
• furniture-making workshops
• hire of guards to protect fragile forest areas
• donations to needy families
• further tree planting

Many these activities have been of particular benefit to Nepali women. The importance of educating Nepali women and allowing their participation in community decision-making has been recognised with forestry income funding literacy programs for over 6000 women.

Since 1978, Australian assistance has helped grow over 20 000 hectares of forest and twenty-eight Nepali forestry officials have studied on scholarships in Australia. This project has inspired more Forest User Groups in other regions of Nepal to start using the same techniques to help maintain forests and reduce poverty.