UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Why Does Tenure Security Matter in Community Forestry? A Critical Reflection from Nepal

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.3126/jfl.v15i1.23082

Authors

Ganga Ram Dahal · Bharat Kumar Pokharel · Dilli Raj Khanal · Pragyan Raj Pokhrel

Reported year

2017

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-09T19:13:38.729464+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:13:38.729464+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations · International Union for Conservation of Nature · International Union for Conservation of Nature (United States)

Documentary abstract — original language

Nepal’s community forestry (CF) programme, which has been in place for over four decades and has rich lessons to offer beyond the national border, is the largest tenure reform initiative in Nepal. Tenure security is one of the primary requirements to unlock the ecological and economic potential of CF through the conservation, management, and utilisation of forest resources. Despite some gaps and issues in policy and practice, positive outcomes of CF have so far been reported. In this paper, we analyse CF tenure reform policy and practice. We find that forest-managing communities have been enjoying access, use, management, and exclusion rights over forest resources. However, communities are not able to tap the economic potential of local forests, partly due to limited opportunities available for commercial harvesting of forest resources and forest-based enterprise development. There is still a lack of institutional capacity among forestry stakeholders to harness the potential offered by changing policy at national and international levels, primarily due to ambiguities in forest carbon ownership and unclear cost and benefit sharing arrangements among different levels of government and community forest user groups (CFUGs). Addressing such issues to secure forest tenure and thereby realise the full potential of forest resources, both ecologically and economically, could be an area of future intervention, particularly in the context of changing national development policies and international environmental initiatives.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W2922368172

DOI

10.3126/jfl.v15i1.23082

Documentary context

Documentary family

Scholarship

Source-reported types

article

Jurisdictions studied — explicit sources

NP

Natural entities mentioned

Forest

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.3126/jfl.v15i1.23082
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W2922368172

Documented bibliographic relations

Source-declared references and links; they do not establish legal support or UGLC qualification. Up to 20 outgoing references are displayed.

• Forests for People: Community Rights and Forest Tenure Reform · CITES
• Forests for people: community rights and forest tenure reform · CITES
• openalex:w1510079491 · CITES
• openalex:w1982375826 · CITES
• openalex:w2096072348 · CITES
• openalex:w2098975333 · CITES
• openalex:w2127083193 · CITES
• openalex:w2167176531 · CITES
• openalex:w2167734792 · CITES
• openalex:w2512975535 · CITES
• openalex:w2610406203 · CITES

2 incoming references within the detected corpus

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

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