WOMEN: THE ROLE MODEL OF COMMUNITY FORESTRY IN NEPAL

With the initiation of community forestry the declining greenery of the forest resources have started to come back in the mid-hills. Its main credit goes to the participatory nature of the programme. Nepalese community forest (CF) is considered to be the most people-oriented program among the various development activities conducted during the last two decades in Nepal (Rai, 2002). Although it is said that CF is a participatory process, active participation of different groups of the community is still lacking. In particular, women’s involvement in many aspects of CF is still lacking far behind. It is obvious that decision making within CF through equity will ensure an equal distribution of benefits which will help in supporting people’s livelihood. But proportion of community forest users groups (CFUS) members’ i.e women, are still not being actively involved. This has attributed to distrust and disinterest in the process (Winrock, 2002).

Gentle (2005) in his lecture note reported that "According to UN statistics, women do 67% of the world's work, yet their earning for it amount to only 10% of the total world's income." Women do most of the work in gathering and using forest products. They have significant knowledge of the forest and local use of the forest. However, lots of women are still unaware of their rights and responsibilities in CF. He also suggested that empowerment of women is the best option to uplift women in the society.

Likewise, Maharjan (1988) suggested the women, poor, marginalized and dalit groups were less benefited from Community Forestry than the wealthier and influential household. They could not obtain free fuelwood and other (non timber forest products) NTFPs that they were collecting from the same forests before the introduction of the community forestry program. Socio-economic, technical, institutional and political factors, including government policies were responsible for the discrepancy (Maharjan, 1988 cited in Thapa, 2005). Bushley (2002) argued that overall, women and disadvantaged group of people did not have equal representation in the key positions in the (Forest users committee) FUCs which contributes to a vicious cycle of lower awareness, lower participation, less access to information, and fewer benefits.

Flintan (2003) also argued that women had less access to the resources, fewer opportunities to improve their livelihoods and less power in making decisions. At this point in time it seems certain that women's participation will help forests first and women second. Women will have to give to forest in terms of interest, time, effort and even money in same cases before forestry provides them products for household consumption and commercial use, income and consequent improvement in position, status and decision making power (Vander, 1989; Cited in Pyakurel 2003).
In Nepal majority of population are living in rural areas. The major activities of rural areas are agriculture and livestock farming. Rural people directly depend upon forest for firewood for cooking, green grasses and fodder for feeding the animals, fallen leafs for bedding to animal, timber for construction of houses and furniture, different kinds of herbs for medicine at local level, and forest as a pasture land to graze the animal. In practice rural women are main collector of these forest resources (except timber) at local level. Therefore, the forestry sector of Nepal has realized that women can play vital role for protection, proper utilization, management and development of forest resources at local level. Furthermore, Master Plan for Forestry Sector (1988) has provided a guideline that the Forest Users Groups should have one-third women‘s participation in-group formation at local level. Later on, the effort had been made to form Forest Community Users Groups from the women population only at the local level.

The first Women Forest Users Group was formed in Balthali V.D.C. of Kabrepalanchok district in 2046 B.S. Current data reveals that 663 women CFUGs are successfully running at local level. According to Kandel, “Women represent about twenty four percent of the total members in the executive committee. Total numbers of CFUGs are 13,125; about five percent of CFUGs having only women as members. It is clear that men have domination in the majority of CFUG committees. But CFUGs with only women member are well managed as compared to men CFUGs or mixed CFUGs.”(Kanel and Gautam, 2061).

The data suggests that there are only five percent of CFUGs run by women only. The CFUGs management and performance of the only women run CFUGs are relatively better managed than others. However, participation status of women in CFUGs is relatively low. The concerning people, member of CFUGs (male and female), civil servant authorities, NGO workers, and social activist indicated that the socio-cultural factors are the major influencing factors of low women participation in CFUGs.

Conclusion

In practices women are involving in livestock farming and agricultural activities. These activities are heavily dependent upon forest resources. Therefore, women have closest relationship with forest resources. Proper management and utilization of forest resources are the main agenda of development. In general, participation of all stakeholders for the mobilization of resources for the developmental activities as well as involvement of all citizens in the regular activities of the nation is concerning matters of the governance. Therefore, forest governance concerning stakeholders is government, community, and local people (male and female) of the local areas.
Community forestry users groups are community-based program. It has become a successful and outstanding program in the Asian region. The participation of women in this program is only twenty four percent and about five percent CFUGs having only women members. But interesting issue is that only women CFUGs are well managed as compared to men or mixed. As mentioned above nature of work of rural women are closely associated with the forest and women have well managed the forest than men but women’s participation is relatively low in forest resource management. This poses a significant question that if women are only managing the forest, what could be its result? For answering this question concerning authorities should identify, realize and take proper action to increase the women participation in governing the forest resource.

References:

Rai, B., (2002). The question of gender equity in the community forest Hamro Ban Sampada,1:19-25,Forest Action, Jawalakhel, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Winrock International., (2002). Decision making within community forest Users Groups, Emerging Issues in community Forest in Nepal.
Kandel and Gautam., (2061) Community Forest Bulletin (Volume 11) Kathmandu: Government of Nepal Department of Forest, Community Forestry Division1.
Maharjan, M.R., (1988)., The Flow and Distribution of Caste and Benefits in the Chuliban Community Forest, Dhankut, District, Nepal: Rural Development Forestry Network. Pger 23e\ODI London. Cited in Thapa, B. (2005) Awareness and Participation of Dalit women in Management of Community Forestry: A thesis submitted to obtain Bachelors degree in the forest science, T.U. IOF.
Bushley, B., (2002). Users Perceptions of the Impacts of Community Forest on Community Development in Nepal's Western Terai Region, Care Nepal.
Gentle, P., (2005)., A lecture Note on Community Forestry, B.Sc. forestry available at IOF Library Hetauda.
Flintan. (2003)., Women, Gender and ICDDs: Lessons learnt and way Forward Summary Document (Volume I). II ed Wild Life Environment and Development. London.
Vender, B.B., (1989). Women's Role in Forest Management, FOA UN Bankok, Cited in Pyakurel, A., (2003) 'Women's participation in Management of Community Forest: A thesis submitted to obtain Bachelors degree in the forest science, T.U. IOF, Nepal.