eISSN: 2957-3602 editor@grpublishing.org
All Journals
Submit your article

Global Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Open Access Peer Review International
Open Access

Community Forestry, Power and Inequality in Nepal

DOI https://doi.org/10.55640/gjhss/Volume05Issue03-05
PDF
Bala Ram Acharya 1 ORCID iD ,
4 Associate Professor of Sociology, Padma Kanya Multiple Campus and Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu (Nepal)

Abstract

Community forestry of Nepal is widely recognized as a successful model of decentralized environmental governance and community development. It has significantly contributed to forest regeneration across Nepal. However, its social outcomes in terms of participation, decisions and distributions of benefit remain uneven and unjust among social groups. This article examines community forestry as an institution for community development and change. It focuses on how social hierarchies and power relations influence participation, leadership, and benefit distribution within Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs).

The study outlines three main objectives. First, it analyzes how gender, caste, and class shapes participation and leadership roles in Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs). Second, it evaluates whether governance on community forestry practices reproduces or reduce inequality at the local level. Third, it analyzes how migration and livelihood changes under community forestry practices changes influence power and decision-making in community forestry institutions. The article is based on a qualitative review of relevant literatures and institutional reports published among 1990 and 2024.

The findings show that decentralization on the forest management system has expanded formal participation in the forest resource management. However, major decision-making power remains concentrated among socially and economically privileged groups within community. Women’s participation is often limited and largely symbolic and instrumental rather than equal participations and ownership in a substantive way. Caste and class continue to influence leadership and benefit sharing. Centralized bureaucratic procedures continue to limit deliberative processes effect on outcomes of community forestry. The article, based on review of previous research, concludes that community forestry in Nepal is a space where different groups struggle over power and resources. The main thematic outcomes of this analysis is that promoting equity requires more than procedural and instrumental inclusion. It requires assurance of meaningful participation to achieve equitable outcomes. It also calls for institutional reform that addresses structural inequalities and decision-making power among social groups.

Keywords

Community forestry, Social inequality, Participatory governance, Migration, Nepal

References

📄 Adhikari, B., & Lovett, J. C. (2006). Transaction costs and community-based natural resource management in Nepal. Journal of Environmental Management, 78(1), 5–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2005.04.005
📄 Adhikary, A. (2019, July 1–5). Investment in forests: What role for community forestry in Nepal? Paper presented at the Seventeenth Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons, Lima, Peru. https://hdl.handle.net/10535/10626
📄 Agarwal, B. (2001). Participatory exclusions, community forestry, and gender: An analysis for South Asia. World Development, 29(10), 1623–1648. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-750X(01)00066-3
📄 Agarwal, B. (2010). Gender and green governance: The political economy of women’s presence within and beyond community forestry. Oxford University Press.
📄 Banjade, M. R., Paudel, N. S., Karki, R., Bhatta, B., & Ojha, H. R. (2010). Discourses of community forestry in Nepal: Actors, power, and outcomes. The Forestry Chronicle, 86(3), 299–308. https://doi.org/10.5558/tfc86299-3
📄 Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). Greenwood Press.
📄 Dahal, G. R., Malla, Y., Pokharel, B. K., Khanal, D. R., Gentle, P., & Paudel, D. (2022). Community forestry policy and legal framework. In N. S. Paudel, H. Ojha, M. R. Banjade, R. Karki, & S. Tamang (Eds.), Revitalising community forestry in the changing socioeconomic context of Nepal. Forest Action Nepal.
📄 Government of Nepal. (1993). Forest Act, 2049 (1993). Ministry of Forests and Environment.
📄 Hobley, M. (1996). Participatory forestry: The process of change in India and Nepal. Rural Development Forestry Network, Overseas Development Institute.
📄 Iversen, V., Chhetry, B., Francis, P., Gurung, M., Kafle, G., Pain, A., & Seeley, J. (2006). High value forests, hidden economies and elite capture: Evidence from forest user groups in Nepal’s Terai. Ecological Economics, 58(1), 93–107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2005.05.021
📄 Kanel, K. R., & Dahal, G. R. (2008). Community forestry policy and its economic implications: An experience from Nepal. International Journal of Social Forestry, 1(1), 50–60.
📄 Lama, A., & Buchy, M. (2002). Gender, class, caste and participation: The case of community forestry in Nepal. Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 9(1), 27–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/097152150200900102
📄 Li, T. M. (2007). The will to improve: Governmentality, development, and the practice of politics. Duke University Press.
📄 Luintel, H., Bluffstone, R., Scheller, R. M., & Adhikari, B. (2017). The effect of the Nepal community forestry program on equity in benefit sharing. The Journal of Environment & Development, 26(3), 297–321. https://doi.org/10.1177/1070496517707305
📄 Malla, Y. B. (2001). Changing policies and the persistence of patron–client relations in Nepal: Stakeholders’ responses to changes in forest policies. Environmental History, 6(2), 287–307. https://doi.org/10.2307/3985588
📄 Murer, C., & Piccoli, A. (2022). Affirmative policy in Nepal’s community forestry: Does it make a difference in terms of social sustainability? Sustainability, 14(9), 5598. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095598
📄 Nightingale, A. J. (2011). Bounding difference: Intersectionality and the material production of gender, caste, class and environment in Nepal. Geoforum, 42(2), 153–162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2010.03.004
📄 Ojha, H. R., Cameron, J., & Kumar, C. (2009). Deliberation or symbolic violence? The governance of community forestry in Nepal. Forest Policy and Economics, 11(5–6), 365–374. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2008.11.003
📄 Pokharel, B. K., & Byrne, S. (2009). Climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies in Nepal’s forest sector: How can rural communities’ benefit? Nepal Swiss Community Forestry Project.
📄 Robbins, P. (2020). Political ecology: A critical introduction (3rd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.
📄 Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. Oxford University Press.
📄 Shin, S., Park, M. S., Lee, H., & Baral, H. (2022). The structure and pattern of global partnerships in the REDD+ mechanism. Forest Policy and Economics, 135, 102640. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2021.102640
📄 Springate-Baginski, O., Dev, O. P., Yadav, N. P., & Soussan, J. (2003). Community forest management in the Middle Hills of Nepal: The changing context. Overseas Development Institute.
📄 Sunam, R., Paudel, N. S., & Paudel, G. (2013). Community forestry and the threat of recentralization in Nepal: Contesting the bureaucratic hegemony in policy process. Society & Natural Resources, 26(12), 1404–1417. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2013.799725
📄 Varughese, G., & Ostrom, E. (2001). The contested role of heterogeneity in collective action: Some evidence from community forestry in Nepal. World Development, 29(5), 747–765. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-750X(01)00012-2

How to Cite

Community Forestry, Power and Inequality in Nepal. (2026). Global Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 5(03), 72-84. https://doi.org/10.55640/gjhss/Volume05Issue03-05

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 > >> 

Similar Articles

11-20 of 50

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.