Governance in Community Forestry in Nepal Through Forest Certification

Forest certification raised a significant amount of interest around the world and it is now increasingly hailed as an incentive to improve community forest management and poverty reduction since it is associated with local economic, social and environmental impacts. We analyzed the impacts found after certification of Kalobhir and Lahare community forest user groups respectively of Dolakha and Bajhang districts of Nepal and assessed the implications for local forest and livelihood management. The subject forest user groups were sorted out and studied following stakeholders and key informants consultations, field observations and literature review. Forest certification found a vehicle for local value addition, income generation and it helped abate negative environmental consequences. Associate positive changes included sustainable collection of forest products and maintenance of transparency, accountability, and equitable benefit sharing. Local enterprises and entrepreneurship were emerged. The revised forest operational plans were in consistent with forest certification indicators resulting in maintenance of inventory of major traded non-timber forest products with management prescriptions, identification of major biodiversity threats and their management plans, provision of general environmental impacts assessment, and wise-use management objectives. However, forest certification is in the growing phase, and it takes some time to accommodate a large number of CFUGs, to be competent and to access the international market for acquiring and sharing benefits among all.