ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines my experiences in catalyzing an adaptive collaborative approach (ACA) in Nepal’s forestry sector from 2000 to 2011. During this period, I was part of a series of action and research projects as field researcher, team leader for the ForestAction component, and team coordinator for another project.1 These projects aimed at improving community forestry policies and practices for forest conservation, livelihoods improvement, contribution to poverty reduction, and promotion of inclusion and equity. Although these were the separate projects, they all shared a concern for social learning and collaborative governance. In this chapter, I explain how different strategies and tools of inclusion, deliberation and learning were applied to improve collaborative action and learning among forest stakeholders from local community to national levels, and identify where we succeeded, and where we failed and why.
