School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences - Theses
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ItemForest management by forest user groups in the mid-hills zone of Nepal( 2002)The move to a community forestry policy in Nepal was an important shift in the 1980s - from state control of forests to management by `Forest User Groups' (FUGs). Significant outcomes have been achieved through these changes in policy and roles, and the hand-over of some 700 000 hectares of forest to more than 9000 FUGs. However, achieving more equitable utilisation of community forests presents a huge challenge to foresters - who are now extension agents. It requires research to evaluate forest management by FUGs and to better understand peoples' perceptions about forestry issues. This research involved various qualitative techniques, mainly from Rapid and Participatory Rural Appraisal, for collection and analysis of data from three case FUGs in Dhankuta District, situated in the Mid-hills zone in eastern Nepal. The socio-economic conditions of three FUGs and their efforts in forest management are described. It was found that community forestry has achieved spectacular success in terms of protection of forest in the study sites. However, the intended livelihood benefits from community forests to disadvantaged groups, such as women and the poor, have yet to be achieved. The study showed that different groups within communities differ in their access to forest and their priorities for use of different forest products. Because the FUGs' decisions are highly influenced by their leaders, who are mostly male and rich, the needs of disadvantaged people are often neglected. Most FUGs still practise conservative closure regimes intended to regenerate forest and produce commercial timber that will benefit richer members rather than products that are more important for the daily use by the majority of the communities. Analysis of the results of in-depth interviews indicates that different groups of people have particular perceptions about some aspects of "good forest condition", based on their own experience and situation. Generally, men in the communities saw a good forest as `high forest' with potential for timber production, whereas women saw it as a diversely structured forest that would provide a range of forest products. The results suggests that the role of forestry officials as extension agents is crucial in promoting changes that will empower disadvantaged groups in forest management and utilization. It is proposed that this aim may be best achieved through the facilitation by forest department staff of the development and implementation of fully participatory forest operational plans by the FUGs.
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ItemGender, climate change, and adaptation: investigating agrobiodiversity management practices in a mountain village of Nepal Himalayas( 2015)This research examines the interplay between gender and adaptation in the context of increasingly uncertain climate conditions and socio-economic transitions, taking a case study of a mountain village in Nepal. This study is conducted at a time when the evidence of climate change has become more visible and more widely accepted than in the past, and also when several other socio-economic changes such as male out-migration, feminization of agrobiodiversity management and increased road networks and market expansion, are also becoming increasingly noticeable throughout the Nepal Himalayas. Combining social-ecological systems with feminist political ecology lenses, this study has generated an in-depth account from a village-level case study of agrobiodiversity management in Kaski district of Nepal, along with the analysis of institutional and policy contexts. Through this, it has demonstrated how gender-based power relations and gender- differentiated knowledge shape adaptation practices in the case study village. It has, in particular, generated in-depth evidence of the ways in which men and women in the case study village respond to the impacts of multiple stressors/pressures in the daily business of managing the local agrobiodiversity, and demonstrates how gender-based power relations and knowledge shape the possibilities for adaptation. This research addresses a particular gap in current knowledge about whether the changing context (climate and social) can have a positive or negative impact towards closing the gender gap as communities and households undertake adaptive actions in agrobiodiversity management. It demonstrates that due to the lack of understanding of the dynamic interplay between gender and complex social-ecological systems (i.e. agrobiodiversity management systems) among policy makers, development agencies and extension groups, people are likely to benefit less from the current adaptation strategies and practices that are being promoted at the local level. Despite several technical innovations in agrobiodiversity management, traditional gender-based power relations have hardly changed, with women continuing to play the subordinate role, as the deeply internalized frame of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ does not normally allow the emergence of ‘critical awareness’ among local community members, particularly women. This thesis shows that the gender-agrobiodiversity adaptation link is not straightforward, requiring a nuanced view of the interplay between gendered forms of knowledge, power and decision-making practices within multiple arenas of agrobiodiversity management ranging from the household, community, national level policy formulation processes and beyond. Improved access to and control over household and community level agrobiodiversity resources, often assumed to have positive effects on gender-based power relations, do not necessarily lead to gender equitable adaptation practices unless we take structural complexity into account. The adaptive capacity of households and communities is to a large extent dependent on how gendered forms of knowledge and power are linked or disconnected across scales of multiple disciplines rather than confined to a single developmental discipline. Theoretically, this research demonstrates that bringing together the elements of social-ecological systems and feminist political ecology approaches is a constructive way to understand gender and adaptation linkages.
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ItemBiodiversity conservation: perceptions and concepts in community forestry in Nepal( 2004)The Community Forestry program in Nepal entrusts communities with full authority in management and use of local forests. In that program, various projects related to biodiversity are implemented through community forest user groups. Government planners, policy makers and non-government agency staff involved in the forestry sector use the term biodiversity extensively in their documents and programs. Yet little research has previously been carried out in Nepal on perceptions and the meaning of the term biodiversity for different stakeholders in community forestry. Such research would appear to be highly important in designing policies and programs on biodiversity conservation. So this study explored perceptions of biodiversity among different stakeholders, with a view to suggest ways to improve mutual understanding in the domain of biodiversity conservation in community forestry in Nepal. Grounded theory was used to guide the collection and analysis of data for a case study conducted in Nepal. Individual interviews and focus group discussions were used to explore the views of government officials, non-government professionals, and local users involved in community forests. Eight community forest user groups were selected from two ecological regions, the Mid-Hills and Tarai. The results indicate that the term biodiversity, brought from the western world, is new and confusing to most forest people. The Nepali term 'jaiwik bibidhata' and concepts related to this was interpreted in a variety of ways and there is a considerable gap between policy-makers and forest users in understanding and interpretation of the term. The study identifies some socio-economic factors influencing forests users' perceptions about biodiversity, such as education, knowledge, exposure to outsiders, gender and caste. Although the majority of forest users were indifferent to the concept of biodiversity conservation in their community forestry, some held concepts about forest use that were remarkably similar to Western concept of biodiversity. Some users expressed a desire for learning and knowledge about biodiversity, so that these concepts could be considered and incorporated where appropriate in their community forestry plans and activities. Some main needs identified for the enhancement of biodiversity conservation in community forestry were research on practical benefits of enhanced biodiversity, frequent sharing of ideas on biodiversity with forest users, improved coordination among forest agencies, and greater sensitivity by officials towards different people's viewpoints on biodiversity. There seems to be potential for building on traditional biodiversity-related concepts held by some community members - to develop practical and meaningful terms and definitions for work in promoting biodiversity conservation. Further research in understanding the people's perceptions, and on the potential of community forestry in conserving biodiversity, is required as a sound basis for the design of effective forest policies and programs in the future. The findings should help clarify to government and NGO officials the perceptions held by forests users and other stakeholders, and hence should assist in building mutual understanding. The thesis concludes that understanding different perceptions held by different stakeholders about biodiversity in community forestry is central and that government and non-government officials and forest users need to understand each other's role in this, if mutually favourable outcomes are to be achieved.