ABSTRACT
This chapter situates the analysis of REDD+ and Community Forestry in Nepal within the context of prevailing structures of caste hierarchy, patriarchy, and feudal-capitalist-colonial relations between the state and ordinary citizens. It discusses Community Forestry as a counterhegemonic agenda to decentralize power in Nepal through devolution of forest governance to people who reside near forests and depend on them for their livelihoods. The author engages in a Political Ecology analysis of the forest commons by situating prevailing power imbalances within Community Forestry as well as the dynamic struggle between the state and forest communities amidst prevailing structures of inequality in Nepali society, and argues that the legitimacy of the presence of REDD+ in Nepal rests on the extent to which it strengthens Community Forestry. Drawing on fieldwork in Nepal’s community forests over three years, this and the previous chapter present the voices of community forest users in Nepal, presenting a nuanced analysis of their views on REDD+ as well as climate justice. As such, Nepal’s forest users share a keen sense of the unjust world they live in, where they see themselves as doing the important but inadequately uncompensated work of conserving forests in a world polluted by affluent countries.
