ABSTRACT
Over recent decades a narrative has developed around the success of the community forestry program in reducing the deforestation rate and improving forest conditions in Nepal. As reducing deforestation and forest degradation are core objectives of community forestry, this chapter seeks to understand the contribution of Nepal’s community forestry to environmental outcomes through a review of published literature. We begin by exploring the origins of different environmental concerns as reflected in the historic development of policies and regulations around the community forestry program and the environmental objectives they identified. Analysis of environmental outcomes is broken down according to forest cover, forest density, regeneration, forest condition, biodiversity, availability of forest products and other benefits. We conclude that community forestry has contributed significantly to the delivery of positive environmental outcomes across these domains, at the local level, across the district landscape level, as well as at the national scale. This is particularly evident in the Middle Hills, but can also be observed in the Terai, where community forestry is less prevalent.
