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The collaborative forest management user group's perceptions and expectations on REDD+ in Nepal

University of British Columbia

As many ecological and socioeconomic problems are associated with deforestation and forest degradation in Nepal, it is in the national interest to address REDD+ immediately. Although local communities and indigenous peoples are the main actors for REDD+ practices, their needs and perceptions have received little attention in the debates on REDD+. In this study, a Collaborative Forest Management (CFM) site was studied using a questionnaire survey administered to the CFM user group, interviews with key informants in the forestry sector and a review of documents to collect background data. The research revealed the local CFM forest users’ perceptions of their forest and their expectations about the potential benefits of REDD+, and examined differences in these perceptions and expectations among nearby and distant users. The study provides insights into the feasibility of REDD+ with the context of the present form of CFM in Nepal. The findings indicate that people are sensitive to changes in climate and the forest around them but are unaware of climate change mechanisms and linkage of climate change and deforestation. There is therefore a need to raise social awareness of climate change and of REDD+. Compared to distant users, nearby users felt more strongly that the forest is essential to their lives and were more interested in participation in REDD+ practices. As the distant users would be also significant actors in the practices, there is a need to raise distant users’ interests in REDD+. Both nearby and distant users have high expectations of the potential benefits of REDD+. However, REDD+ is treated as a technical matter in national debates, and there has been a failure to recognize the impacts on society and human welfare at the local level. The Government urgently needs to take human welfare into account if they are to receive local support. Nepal needs to keep exploring the most appropriate methods to implement REDD+ projects, given the structure of the society being affected. It is important to develop a system of equitable decision-making and benefit-sharing that reflects local needs, and is incorporated into any REDD+ action plans applied to the Terai forests.

Text

2012-06-27

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/42547

Forestry

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/