By IPS Correspondents
KATHMANDU, May 19 2004 (IPS)

When the monsoon rain started three years ago, inhabitants of lower Kharang village in Sankhuwasava district in eastern Nepal decided to sow bamboo saplings on the nearby landslide-prone slopes.

Two years on, the slope has turned green, and the landslides have all but stopped.

"We planted bamboo siblings there because the slope was worth for nothing but bamboo,” says a content-looking Lila Bahadur Dahal, an executive member of the Kalika Community Forest User Group, which was formed in 2000. "Now the siblings are green and growing and we are happy.”

In a country where nearly 90 percent of the population is dependent on agriculture, forest products like bamboo is a boon. Residents can use bamboo products for a multitude of purposes – in the cowsheds, in the fields, in vegetable gardens and even in houses.

Across the hills and plains of Nepal, community forestry is booming, giving back impoverished communities the right and power to own, manage and use forests in their surroundings and, in the process, restoring the greenery and fertility of once-barren hills and valleys.

This, just when an eight-year-old conflict, compounded by a lopsided political tussle, continues to take its toll on the natural resources of this Himalayan kingdom. The fighting between the government and the Maoist insurgents intensified after 2001, and the aftermath has seen a steep rise in the incidents of wildlife poaching and logging.

The 70 members of the Kalika user group, for instance, drew their inspiration from the Hokse Community Forest User Group in nearby Hokse village. They envy the group there because it has been selling valuable ‘saal’ timber worth millions of rupees every year.

Nepal’s forest laws and regulations have devolved the authority over the management and use rights of the forests like Hokse to local user groups. The money is used in organising reforestation and community development programmes such as local infrastructure and education to adults, women and ethnic minorities.

But communities have been jittery with the government because the latter has started taking away a good slice of the pie from the user groups. Four years ago, the government made a decision requiring user groups selling valuable timber products – from ‘saal’, ‘chanp’ and ‘khayer’ trees – to pay 40 percent of their income to the government.

The forest user groups that do not boast the three types of valuable timber, however, are required to pay only 10 percent of their incomes to the government.

That policy continues to remain in place despite the fact the Supreme Court has termed the government decision "unlawful”. The court also ordered the government to hand over the remaining forests to the communities. But the new forest ordinance introduced by the government has overlooked that court verdict, say user group members. "It’s not fair,” says Apsara Chapagain, vice president of the Federation of Community Forest User Groups – Nepal (FECOFUN), at least 3,000 user groups across the country. "The communities worked hard to nurture the forests. Now it’s time to taste the fruits and the government wants to take a huge slice away from our earnings.”

Chapagain is also one of the executives of Jyalachiti Community Forest User Group in Panauti municipality in Kavre district. "The government’s policy says that the user groups are an independent, autonomous, self-governed and powerful body,” she says. "But that doesn’t quite seem to be the case.”

Chandi Prasad Shrestha, secretary at the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation, meanwhile, defends the government, saying that the government has already "corrected the error” and that there has been no discrimination against the communities nurturing forests across the country.

"It’s only that the government, too, is seeking its rights over the forests the communities own,” he said. "Only the user groups that sell valuable timber are made to pay more. After all, the forests are government property.”

But in Kathmandu’s conservation circle, many fear that the government’s policy could undo the much-vaunted success story of Nepal’s community forestry, which has eventually become a forest conservation model for the rest of the developing world. They insist that the government should relax its decision and empower the communities more.

"What we have achieved today is a result of the hard work and dedication of the communities, the poor farmers,” says Subodh Gautam, a journalist with ‘Kantipur’ daily who has extensively covered nature conservation. "So maybe the government needs to do more to correct its decision. And it needs to carry on with the forest handover process that has all but stopped.”

Introduced in the mid-1980s as a pilot project, community forestry has grown across Nepal’s rugged mountains, valleys and plains over the years. >From just a few hundred user groups in the early 1990s, the number of user groups has reached 13,000 at present.

Today, over 8 million rural farmers are involved in community forestry. Nearly 18 percent of the country’s forest cover today is owned, managed and used by communities. At the same time, there are more user groups that are being formed and more forests being handed over, say officials at the Ministry of Forest, blaming the conflict and adverse political situation for the delay.

Many experts credit the use of community forestry for the maintenance of Nepal’s thinning forest cover. According to the National Level Forest Inventory, endorsed by the government in 1998, the country’s forest cover stood at 29 percent in the late 1980s, down from 38 percent in the late 1970s.

Both forests and shrubs covered 39.6 percent – 29 percent forest and 10.6 percent shrub – of the total land area, down from 42.7 percent – 38 percent forest and 4.7 percent – shrub in the late 1970s.

In Kharang village, the users have a bigger dream: after the bamboos are fully grown, they want to grow bamboo, ‘saal’, ‘amla’ and ‘harra’ trees all over the steep mountain, nurture them so that their forest pay off handsome dividends in future. But, definitely, they do not want to see the government take away a big slice away from it.

"Nowhere on earth can you nurture all the saplings you have planted,” says Hima Devi Chauhan, another member of the user group. "It’s wrong to expect all the saplings to grow up and become trees just like that. We have to ensure better care to the saplings. It’s just like raising your kids.”

Excerpt: