Project Overview
Local communities and Indigenous Peoples have contributed significantly to the protection and management of forest areas in Nepal, but their contribution is rarely appreciated. Despite having successful outcomes of community forestry in Nepal, Indigenous Peoples and local communities lack full security of tenure over forests and land resources. They are often hindered by restrictions and controls imposed by forest bureaucracy, which exercises discretionary power in the interpretation of legal frameworks.
For example, Nepal’s forest bureaucracy still retains powers to withdraw community forestry and maintains administrative and technical control over the harvest and sale of forest products, mainly timber, from community forest areas. The government recently passed a new federal Forest Act in 2019 and a regulation in 2022 to manage forest rights, however, both instruments are regressive in terms of devolving power to local communities and securing and promoting land rights.
At a global level, the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities have been further strengthened through various interventions such as in 2021, COP-26 of UNFCCC where governments and private funders have pledged 1.7 billion US dollars to support tenure rights and forest guardianship of Indigenous Peoples and local communities globally. Similarly, ILO 169, UNDRIP, and FPIC are all unfolding around the world to contribute towards securing, reviving and protecting community forestland of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. This project takes reference from the tenure needs in the country, the global phenomenon unfolding, and the work done in a previous project phase.
During the previous project phase (2020-2022), 100 local governments were facilitated to enact local forest laws which are relatively progressive and forward looking for communities, as compared to the federal and provincial forest laws. Despite the impactful results achieved in this first project, there is still work to be done. Thus, this second project phase will support the process of deepening the rights of communities provided by the local forest laws and help communities realise those rights in practice.
This new phase will focus on deepening existing work, ensuring quality of engagement and substantially increasing the participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the formulation of local forest acts and their implementation. Overall, it will facilitate local governments and forest communities develop local forest laws that safeguard and uphold the forest and tenure rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. The initiative will be implemented across multiple municipalities in Nepal focusing on enhancing forest governance, livelihoods and community-based forest enterprises. Upon its completion, community forest user groups and indigenous communities in Nepal will have securer tenure rights.
