Two decades of community forestry in Nepal: What have we learned?

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Two decades of community forestry in Nepal: What have we learned? “I would not have been in the position I am today without the support I received from NSCFP. The offer of a scholarship to me was not only a social prestige, professional award and an opportunity for me to grow and develop my career, but it also transformed my way of thinking. I became more committed to working closely with local communities”. Gopal K Shrestha, Director General of the Department of Forests In this way, the project made a signifi cant contribution to the national skills base in forestry. The internal project monitoring system notes that in the early 1990s, the main reason that Forest Department offi cials went to the fi eld was to punish forest offenders; they were perceived by local people as police. By the early 2000, the changed role of Forest Department offi cials from police to partner or advisor in supporting community forestry was “clearly recognised by CFUG members, and there were very few complaints against them” (though their fi eld movements were restricted) 10 . The importance of project support in anchoring community forestry institutionally, in government practice, should not be underestimated – even if NGO and Forest Department staff members express different perspectives on the current situation. “Members of government staff have still not become used to actively practice good governance and a gender sensitive approach, and do not maintain transparency.” Kamala Basnet, FECOFUN, Dolakha “NSCFP has been more interested in working with the NGOs than with the government.” Bishnu Lal Ghimire, DFO, Okhaldhunga In the third and fourth phases (1996 – 2004), NSCFP turned its focus to encouraging individuals or small groups of individuals to register as NGOs and become service providers that could work directly with CFUGs. The concept of local service providers was widely viewed as a major innovation at the time – and one that other projects followed subsequently, recognising its practicality in the time of civil confl ict. NGO staff members were trained in legal aspects of community forestry, participatory methodologies, and specifi c methodologies such as well-being ranking, livelihood opportunities assessment, and governance coaching. The fact that a signifi cant amount of project work was outsourced through these NGOs allowed them to gain experience and competencies so that they could diversify their services, and also offer them to other organisations apart from forestry. “NSCFP is one of the reasons for the establishment of many local NGOs in the district.” Ratna Kandel, Secretary, Pahadi Samaj Kalyan Kendra, Dorambha, Ramechhap 10 NSCFP maintained a monitoring sheet documenting the key changes that have taken place over time against various parameters related to attitude, behavior and organisational culture of the forest departments and related institutions. This was commonly known as the commonly known as A3 size rolling sheet of monitoring, which is summarised in NSCFP Issue Paper Number 1 (see NSCFP, 2007). 16
Two decades of community forestry in Nepal: What have we learned? “Social mobilisation, institutional developments and human resource development in the district have been possible only through NSCFP……Local NGOs are now well capacitated and can even compete at the national level.” Hitraj Karki, Gramin Bikas Manch (FORD) Nepal, Okhaldhunga “NGO capacities have been built through NSCFP intervention. Now many trained people have been engaged not only in forestry; they are competent human resources available locally of health, drinking water and education sector too…. NSCFP was the one who started involving NGOs as new service provider actor, and now this approach is being extended in other districts” Ramesh Sunam, ForestAction “Most of the NGOs operating in the district now and working for various donors and development agencies are those which were trained by NSCFP and have worked with NSCFP before”. N.R. Neupane, NGO activist, Dolakha At the same time, the growth of NGOs in the project area provided an opportunity for some young people to gain local employment, although not to the extent that it had a signifi cant effect on out-migration trends in the districts. “Another aspect…is the reversal of the brain drain which had taken place in…rural areas. In general, the young educated people originating from the rural areas had diffi culties to fi nd their place back home. The involvement of local NGOs as service providers for emerging Forest User Groups provided an opportunity to engage them in the “micro-projects”. ..” Karl Schuler, NSCFP Team Leader (for SDC) Sept 1995 – April 1999; Assistant (later Deputy) Country Director of SDC in Nepal to Feb 2004 “I appreciate the multi-partnership approach of the project. Although this was challenging at the beginning, it helped create local employment and many human resources” Ganesh Karki, FECOFUN The dynamics of NGO development were not simple, however. Some of the most energetic professional forest rangers left the department to establish their own NGOs, specialising in the provision of technical services. Some would consider this an unfortunate loss of departmental expertise; others of healthy competition. At the political level, many of the NGOs through which the project worked – especially in Dolakha district – were overtly (or perceived to be) linked to one particular party, giving rise to complaints by Maoists that the project had to revisit the way it was operating in terms of working with local NGOs. Competition for work between NGOs sometimes became fi erce, and project staff members were under constant pressure to demonstrate absolute political neutrality, accountability and transparency in the face of spurious accusations (see section on confl ict sensitive management). It has already been noted that in the fi nal, post-confl ict years of NSCFP, particular emphasis was placed on building the capacities of CFUGs, and that NGOs have 17
Page 1 and 2: TWO DECADES OF COMMUNITY FORESTRY I
Page 3 and 4: Namdu, Dolakha, 1989 Namdu, Dolakha
Page 5 and 6: FOREWORD Over 20 years ago, the Swi
Page 7 and 8: List of Abbreviations AIDS : Acquir
Page 9 and 10: CONTENTS Foreword .................
Page 11 and 12: 1. INTRODUCTION Two decades of comm
Page 13 and 14: Two decades of community forestry i
Page 25: Two decades of community forestry i
Page 41 and 42: With regard to the participation of
Page 47 and 48: Box 6: Governance coaching at CFUG
Page 69 and 70: 9. FOREST BASED ENTERPRISES Two dec
Page 77 and 78:
Two decades of community forestry i
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Departments and Ministries Two deca
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
REFERENCES Two decades of community
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
show all

Two decades of community forestry in Nepal: What have we learned?

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?