Environmental degradation in Nepal

114 Community forestry programme: Nepal’s community forestry programme has been successfully conducted for the last three decades. During this period, according to the Department of Forests, about 1 700 048 ha 29.2 percent of forest area has been managed and is benefiting some 40 percent 13 423 170 of households Table 8. These community forests more than 18 000 FUGs produce an average annual income of NR177 130 for each district. The Forest Act 1993 allows these groups to trade surplus forest products and use the income for a range of community development activities. In addition, the process has generated local employment and enhanced empowerment of many civil society organizations CSOs. Above all, financially these are self-sustaining forest management institutions, which pay taxes to the government. Leasehold forest: Participation of poorer communities in forestry is being actively promoted. The practice principally follows that of community forestry, but the groups are much smaller and manage smaller areas of degraded forests. The process is unique because a different land-use practice is allowed, other than forestry, if the group desires. Collaborative forest management: Following the community forestry principle, to advance the technical capability of the group, highly priced timber-yielding sal forest has been handed over to the Collaborative Forest Group. There is no limitation to the area of forest this group can manage. There are 19 groups formed so far and all are in the Terai; the biggest is 5 087.43 ha Kapilvastu Collaborative Forests DoF 2012. Buffer zone forest management: In addition to the efforts carried out for national forest, Buffer Zone Community Forest Management addresses the buffer zone of the protected area. Following the principles of community forestry, silvicultural management is not practised here but ecotourism, REDD and others are being promoted. Private forestry and its enhancing role: The government is inviting the private sector to take an active role in forest product supply. There are altogether 2 458 private forests registered; total forest area registered amounts to 2 360.84 ha. The timber supply trend over the last five years shows that 49 percent of the total requirement for timber supply comes from private forest DoF 2012. Similarly, community forestry provided 37 percent and national forest, DoF-managed forest, supplied only 14 percent. Timber supply from national forest is decreasing, partly because of the green felling ban, and lack of governance in the management of national forests. Compensatory payment approachesmechanism: This has been developed with a view to discouraging conversion of forest land to other land uses. In this context the “responsible agency has to plant equal area of forests in the area specified bearing all the responsibilities for protection and management costs for up to five years when the forest has been converted to other development projects or non-profit purposes. In case of profit making purposes, responsible agencies are required to: i plant 25 trees for every single tree felled or harvested, and ii plant equal area of forests in the area specified and bear all the protection and management costs for up-to five years” HMGN 1996. Following this policy, the MoFSC has imposed a 5 percent environment tax on the profits of eight hydropower projects. It is necessary to obtain the permission of the MoFSC for the construction of hydropower projects, highways or other projects. The Energy Producers Association of Nepal EPAN is opposing the aforesaid compensatory payment policy of the government. EPAN does not see any rationale to impose an environmental tax on hydropower projects as it perceives the construction of hydropower projects as a means to stop deforestation which otherwise would happen due to the collection and burning of fuelwood. Private investment in the forestry sector: Information on private sector investment in forestry is very scarce. Of the many forest-based industries operated by the private sector, many of them do not have their own plantations to feed the industries but use raw materials obtained from government forests. In lieu, these industries pay royalties to the DoF. Production from mines and quarries on forest lands is considered forest produce in the forest legislation of Nepal. There are stone, gravel, slate, lime and marble quarries operating on forest land in various parts of the country. Private entrepreneurs are involved in such activities. Statistics on the production of these materials are not available. There is very little foreign direct investment FDI in the private sector. Dabur Nepal, since its inception in 1992, is a private sector company engaged in promoting medicinal and aromatic plant products through direct funding. It has exported medicinal products worth US32.19 million, thereby contributing over US2.57 million to the Nepalese treasury in just one decade see www.dabur.comnepal. In brief, revenue mainly comes from the royalties obtained from the sale of forest products such as timber, fuelwood and various NWFPs. Entities such as CFUGS have to pay the government 15 percent of their income obtained from the sale of forest products, in addition to a 13 percent VAT, which is applicable to the sale of timber and other forest products coming from private forests as well. Ecotourism is a relatively new major source of income that largely comes from protected areas in the form of fees and hunting licences. The DNPWC generates a substantial amount of revenue from ecotourism making it a major contributor followed by the community forests programme. Private forests are growing into a sector for supplementing forest products, especially timber. Trees outside the forest are another potential source of income revenue which has yet to be computed. Forestry programmes are financed by the government, however a significant portion comes from bi- and multilateral donor agencies. 115

5.5 Case study: Chautara pine reforestation sites

Considerable effort was made between 1980 and 1990 to study the recovery process of natural vegetation both in plantations and protected shrublands. A study was carried out in a ten-year old Pinus roxburghii plantation established under the Nepal-Australia Forestry Project in the Chautara forest range, Sindhu Palchok District at an elevation of about 1 450 to 1 600 masl with total rainfall of around 1 800 mm. The study was carried out on a 35-ha site representing the following land uses prior to reforestation: 1 dry ridges covered with short grass and bushes, 2 grazing land, 3 abandoned agricultural dry terraces and 4 remnant forests. These land-use types were studied on north- and south-facing slopes Figure 1 and Table 9. The study observed a strong natural recovery of broadleaved species in the understorey of pines established at a spacing of 2.5 x 2.5 m particularly on north-facing slopes, where in some instances the recovering broadleaf species dominated the planted pines Mohns et al. 1988. Aboveground biomass and productivity rates of pines and broadleaved tree species plus lesser vegetation and litter were investigated. Total biomass for the pines ranged from 2.5 to 29.7 tonsha with annual productivity rates of 0.6 and 6.7 tonshayear. Naturally regenerating broadleaved tree biomass ranged from 5.1 to 24.3 tonsha with productivity rates between 1.8 and 6.7 tonshayear. The biomass of lesser vegetation varied between 0.71 and 2.5 tonsha. There was a strong influence from canopy closure on annual understorey grass production which ranged from 0.14 to.0.22 tons hayear. Values for accumulated litter were rather uniform throughout the samples 4.3 to 5.3 tonsha and comprised between 9.6 and 24.8 percent of total aboveground biomass see Table 9. Wood and foliage biomass of regenerated coppiced stools and root suckers of the dominant species of Myrsine capitellata and Quercus lanuginosa only reached considerable values on north-facing slopes. This indicates a far stronger broadleaved succession on these sites. The two species are totally absent on exposed grazing land facing south and on former terraces. In comparison to other studies in subtropical and tropical countries pine biomass was rather low which can be mainly attributed to the low original stocking density wide spacing of the original plantation design. Also standing biomass and productivity rates of the broadleaved fraction are far below the results of studies on related Castanopsis sp.- and Machilus sp.-dominated forests in warm temperate and subtropical climates. Again this can be related to the low stocking rates of the remnant broadleaved trees in the study site. In subsequent detailed studies on the relationship between low crown canopy cover, diameter of planting pits with initial weeding and disturbance of surface soil, wind-dispersed tree seeds particularly from Schima wallichii and Prunus sp. from bird droppings were positively influenced by the establishment of pines as a nurse crop. Studies on broadleaved species revealed a strong influence of lopping intensity on stem form and annual wood biomass growth. Coppicing trials with Schima wallichii showed strong influences of timing of stem removal and diameter of stumps on the regrowth pattern. Figure 1. Diameter distributions of pines and broadleaved tree species on a north-facing slope. The trees are stratified according to former land use; d30cm is the diameter of stems at 30 cm above ground