Community forestry in a changing context: A perspective from Nepal’s mid-hill

Community forestry (CF) is one of the major forest management modalities in the world. A growing body of literature documents various outcomes and interactions of people with CF, but limited studies have assessed the mode of forest-people interaction considering changing socio-economic and environmental contexts by employing a broader theoretical framework. Our study employed Ostrom’s social-ecological system (SES) framework accompanied by a meta-synthesis of peer-reviewed literature (n = 74), review of policy documents and census reports (n = 28), interviews with four stakeholder groups (n = 47) and group discussions with district-level forest user groups (n = 20), to explore the changed context in Nepal’s mid-hills since 1990 s. The study revealed transformational changes in socio-economic and environmental contexts of Nepal’s mid-hills compared to the conditions in which the CF was developed during 1990 s. Changes in the forces (or factors) of SES, including demography, socio-economic development, government policy and environmental discourse are so pronounced that its feedback to the social-ecological system is discernible. For example, the evolving dynamics have changed the mode of forest-people interaction and their relationship by altering land use practices, resource use patterns, farm-forestry linkage, and pool of human resources, which is reflected in diminishing participation, social capital, collective action, and (voluntary) contribution to CF management. Such (emerging) dynamics in the social-ecological system could further jeopardise CF institutions and their deliberation, weaken the forest-food security nexus, augment leadership gaps in forest management, and impede the country’s efforts in achieving global climate and development goals. To revitalize CF in this changing context, we suggest that community forests should be managed in three different models: urban, protection and production by putting payment of ecosystem services in place. As Nepal is a global leader in CF and its policies are informing forest and land use policies around the world, the outcomes of our study could offer an insight to the decision-makers of other countries for recalibrating land use policies by considering evolving local and global dynamics and their feedback to SES.