PS 24-67
Global environmental policy in the local resource management: Analysis of REDD+ implications in the Nepal’s community forestry
REDD+ is expected to reduce forest carbon emissions; sequester atmospheric carbon; promote collaboration between developing and developed countries; and support poverty alleviation effectively, quickly, and cheaply. Therefore, tropical developing countries have been increasingly interested in incorporating REDD+ provisions in their forest policy formulation/revision processes. However, there is a critical need for empirical knowledge on how REDD+ affects existing forest management, particularly in situations of decentralized forest management and strong potential effects on local communities’ livelihoods. To address this need, we sampled 130 forests using rapid-assessment surveys and surveyed 130 forest user groups and 1,300 forest dependent households across Nepal.
Results/Conclusions
Our first analysis examined some of the critical ecological, social and economic aspects to understand the implications of REDD+ on community forest management. The initial findings indicate that REDD+ brings both opportunities and challenges for the community forestry. It often highlights conflicting objectives to forest management – ecological conservation and consumptive use of forest - and adds complexities and dynamism in the forest management. It destabilizes the forest governance and re-centralizes power and authority in forest management; imposes restrictions in forest products use; increases disproportionately higher responsibilities to the communities; and undermines the unique forest ecosystem and traditional practice of forest management. However, it creates awareness about climate change in the rural communities; brings unconventional resources in the forest managing communities; brings new technology and approaches to forest management so as to increase forest productivity; link the local forest management with global environmental concerns; and capacitates the communities to understand and manage forest ecosystem as a complex process. Flexibility to adapt the core concepts of REDD+ at the national and local levels helps achieve twin goals of reducing emissions and poverty reduction through the promotion of conservation as well as judicious local use of forest resources.