The study is an endeavour to contribute to the newly launched collaborative forest management (CFM) program in the Terai region of Nepal. The study was carried out in Parsaunai VDC of Bara district of central Nepal to review the effectiveness of the CFM for biodiversity conservation by documenting the people’s participation, analysing the approaches and programs conducted for Biodiversity Conservation and by identifying the benefits of CFM to the people in terms of Biodiversity conservation.
Primary data for the study were collected mainly by field observations, household surveys, in depth personal interviews with household heads and key informants, interviews with stakeholders, local leaders and forestry officers and professionals of the study area. The field level information were also probed with discussion with district forestry co-ordination committee members, local NGOs/social workers and with information derived from the secondary sources which include review of the previous literature, books and journals published so far.
It was found that, within the scope of this study, CFM is favoured by almost 2/3 of the people because of the failure of the previous forest management approaches, and its broad based stakeholder’s participation scheme, which solely considers the people from the distant user area too. It is also generating a significant amount of revenue to the government which was not legally possible during the process approaches of Terai forest management like community forestry. People’s participation in the first phase of the program was also found satisfactory. Due to the government intervention and peoples handing in several Biodiversity conservation activities were being carried out e.g. study tour, NTFP farming etc. awareness towards the conservation of wildlife is found to be increased. In some cases people have started banning poaching and controlled encroachment in their area hence maintaining good regeneration and growing stock in the forest. Some promising NTFP/MAPs cultivation were found to be effective for the household income enhancement, hence reducing peoples pressure in the forest.
The study concludes that the CFM is a very good vehicle to drive the participatory Biodiversity Conservation throughout the Terai and Chure area of Nepal. Being a case study it is recommended that the study result should be tested in other similar areas for the generalisation.
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