English - Support to Participatory Constitution Building in Nepal ...

Chapter6Forestland reform:Transferring state property tocommunity property in postconflictNepal 1 Bharat Kumar Pokharel 2Bimala Rai Paudyal 31. IntroductionDifferent types of property rights over natural resources create differentconsequences for use and management. Rights related to access andentry, management, exclusion or inclusion and alienation affect incentivestructure and future operational decisions. Nepal’s land resources areeither with individuals as private property or with the government as stateproperty. Though communities manage some part of forests owned bythe state under community-based forest management approaches, theydo not enjoy the privilege of having land entitlement, therefore are veryvulnerable to exclusion from access to forestland and sharing benefits fromit. Based on the analysis of secondary information, this chapter providesconceptual framework of common property regimes and explores theopportunities to reform property rights arrangements over forest landresources in Nepal. Based on the learning of community forestry regimein Nepal, arguments are made to justify the need to transfer the forestresources nearby the settlement from the state property to communityproperty regime.2. Understanding rights and relationship in property regimesFrom ownership point of view, there are three types of property regimes:private property, state property and common property (Feeny et al.1990; Bromley 1992). There exists also a fourth type of property regime1Some portion of this chapter have been drawn from the PhD research work of Bharat K. Pokharel oncommon property regimes, and work of Bimala Rai Paudyal on gender and social exclusion update:forestry sector and some ideas were shared during Land Governance E-conference held in March2010.2Project Director, Nepal Swiss Community Forestry Project and Country Representative, IntercooperationNepal. PO Box 113, Kathmandu, Nepal; bk_pokharel@nscfp.org.np3Senior National Programme Officer, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC Nepal). POBox 113, Kathmandu, Nepal; bimala.rai-paudyal@sdc.net111