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The Table shows that community forestry is managed in the country with
an investment of about 1727 million NRs (25 million US$), of which 17.5
million US $ is borne by the local communi� es only.
Benefi ts from community forestry
Despite huge investment by local communi� es and the scale of opera� on
throughout the country, the contribu� on of community forestry to Nepal’s
economy is not well recognised by the na� onal accoun� ng system. Linkages
between the community forestry sub-sector and the poverty indicators of
the Na� onal Planning Commission are weak; no mechanisms in place to link
community forestry impact monitoring data with the na� onal data. This
is partly by reason of major share of the na� onally unaccounted budget
of community forestry is borne voluntarily by local communi� es and li� le
comes from the government treasury. The na� onal level data tends to
look for physical targets against government budget rather than impacts
par� cularly on poverty regardless of the PRSP and government periodic
plans that lay emphasis on community par� cipa� on.
World Bank (1994) es� mated that under an intensive forest management
regime Nepal's forests could yield products valued at NRs 12.5 billion per
year (18.0 million US$) - taking into account only woody products. Given
the present 1.2 million hectare area of community forests, these are
clearly signifi cant amounts – the rela� ve fi nancial impact of focusing on
‘commercial’ i.e. traded products as opposed to subsistence fuelwood and
fodder. At present very li� le of this poten� al is being realised.
Data from government-controlled forests is not available. However it is
roughly es� mated that currently Nepal u� lises only 8 percent of the mean
annual increment from such forests. This supports the World Bank es� mate
of the loss of NRs 62.5 million (892,000 US$) per day for not sustainably
managing Nepal’s exis� ng forests (World Bank 1994). This is a huge fi gure
when compared with foreign aid to the forest sector received by Nepal
(approximately 52,000 US $ per day) over the past 10 years. The total annual
income from the sale of forest products from community forests is about
NRs 747 million (Kanel, 2004). This stands higher than the annual budget
of the Forest Department of about NRs 680 million, and the annual income
from government controlled forests of about NRs 550 million in 2002. Since
community forests cover only about 22 percent of area that are na� onal
forests but generate a much larger income, the implica� on is that forest
management through community forestry is the more effi cient in terms of
revenue genera� on (Kanel 2004).
In addi� on to the economic benefi ts men� oned above, community
forestry contributes to social inclusion, gender equality and rural
development. In 15 years, community forestry has become one of the largest
ini� a� ves in the country. There are around 14337 CFUG formed, 80 percent
of which are federated at village, district and na� onal level federa� on with
an infl uen� al role in policy making processes at local, na� onal and, to some
extent, at the interna� onal level. A total of 23 percent of the country's
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Changing paradigms of aid eff ec� veness in Nepal