ABSTRACT
Community forest management usually entails restricting the extraction of forest products from the managed forest area to allow regeneration. Using household and FUG survey data from the Hill and Tarai regions of Nepal, this chapter examines household behavioural effects of community forest management and how they differ between traditionally disadvantaged households and other households. The percentage of Nepal's rural households that are members of community forest user groups has increased dramatically since the early 1990s and is still increasing. Before community forestry, the average 'rich' household consumed 5 headloads of fuelwood from the community forest each year because they often obtained fuelwood from private trees. But there has been less focus in the economics literature on how traditionally disadvantaged households in Nepal the landless, occupational (untouchable) castes, female-headed, or elderly households adapt to FUG forest and management conditions, particularly when traditional collection of forest products from the FUG forest is constrained.
