UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Inefficient forest institutions or rigid forest policies: Diagnosing delays in Nepal’s forest diversion

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.1016/j.tfp.2026.101426

Authors

Prayash Ghimire · Pragya Khanal

Reported year

2026

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-09T19:18:42.865170+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:18:42.865170+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

Government of Nepal · Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation

Documentary abstract — original language

Forest land diversion is a governance challenge with significant consequences for rural communities, conservation outcomes, and national development. Despite legal provisions permitting diversion, the approval process is widely perceived as slow and unpredictable, generating persistent public and political criticism toward forest institutions. This paper asks: to what extent do delays in Nepal's forest land diversion process arise from rigid policy design, institutional capacity constraints, or their interaction? Drawing on systematic document analysis of the Forest Act 2019 and Forest Regulation 2022, complemented by practitioner-informed interpretation, the study employs a qualitative policy diagnostic approach to disaggregate policy-induced from institution-induced sources of delay. The findings suggest that delays are primarily shaped by rigid procedural requirements including mandatory cabinet approval regardless of scale or impact, multi-tier sequential processing preventing parallel review, uniform and excessive documentation irrespective of project type, rigid post approval mechanism. These procedures are further intensified by institutional constraints including limited technical capacity, co-ordination challenges across governance levels and risk averse bureaucratic nature. Neither dimension alone explains the pattern of delay, they interact to produce delays whose severity exceeds what either factor would generate independently. These delays carry inequitable consequences: rural communities dependent on small-scale infrastructure bear the same procedural burden as large commercial projects. Reform efforts therefore require simultaneous attention to policy redesign and institutional strengthening while preserving the conservation safeguards that have contributed to Nepal's forest governance outcomes.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W7170343122

DOI

10.1016/j.tfp.2026.101426

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/10.1016/j.tfp.2026.101426
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W7170343122

Documented bibliographic relations

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

• openalex:w1975261156 · CITES
• openalex:w1983981789 · CITES
• openalex:w2018399388 · CITES
• openalex:w2024794220 · CITES
• openalex:w2058375733 · CITES
• openalex:w2068948451 · CITES
• openalex:w2077301120 · CITES
• openalex:w2084151921 · CITES
• openalex:w2141947797 · CITES
• openalex:w2332440152 · CITES
• openalex:w2342522711 · CITES
• openalex:w2751315899 · CITES
• openalex:w2767834460 · CITES
• openalex:w2782962852 · CITES
• openalex:w2810392725 · CITES
• openalex:w2921307401 · CITES
• openalex:w2973615657 · CITES
• openalex:w4295308939 · CITES
• openalex:w4307217168 · CITES
• openalex:w4313593932 · CITES

0 incoming references within the detected corpus

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

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