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The Chepang and forest conservation in the central mid-hills of Nepal
Abstract
This study was carried out in Wards 3 and 4 of Shaktikhor Village Development Committee (VDC), which forms a bottleneck in the Barandavar forest that connects the Chitwan National Park with the Mahabharat Range (mid-hills) in the north. The intent was to analyse the Chepang indigenous community, their dependency and pressure on the forest, their traditional management methods, the potential for community-based forest management and other related issues. The study method included open-ended interviews with four District Forest Office (DFO) staff, 15 key informants, a socio-economic survey of 250 households, data collection on household consumption of forest products and an analysis of land cover changes from the years 1970 and 2000. Chepangs were found highly dependent on a forest whose area has decreased by 12%, resulting in a reduction in species used by the Chepang for their livelihoods. Economic development based on non-timber forest products (NTFPs) has potential to decrease forest dependency and help conservation but the oligopoly (a limited number of suppliers and sellers) nature of the market, policyrelated problems and limited DFO technical staff has prevented people from enjoying NTFP-based economic benefits. The Chepang traditional management practice was found to be environmentally friendly but at times of increased population pressure on the forest these traditions broke down. Lack of trust between Chepangs and non-Chepangs, and the absence of mediation from the DFO obstructed the formation of community organizations to manage the forest.
... In Nepal, increased market access due to rural road expansion, outmigration, foreign employment, and land use changes have resulted in socio-economic changes, causing a loss of cultural practices over the last 20 years [24][25][26][27]. For example, the Chepang people, a marginalized Indigenous group living in central Nepal [28,29], are now less dependent on forests, and their main livelihood sources are ...
... Apart from fodder, timber and fuelwood, they collect wild vegetables and fruits that are used as dietary supplements and play a significant role in food security, as crop production is not sufficient for year-round sustenance [32]. Various medicinal plants are also used to treat different diseases and ailments [29,36,58]. ...
Major socio-economic changes over the last few decades have reduced Indigenous peoples’ engagement in cultural practices, such as harvesting of forest resources. Nevertheless, some species remain important for culture, subsistence and livelihood, such as the chiuri tree (Diploknema butyracea (Roxb.) H. J. Lam) to the Chepang people of Central Nepal. Using the cultural keystone species framework, we conducted interviews within Chepang communities to assess the biocultural importance of the chiuri tree. It is central to the Chepang culture, and no other species could provide the same benefits. It also provides food and habitat for a number of wildlife species, including bats, which are themselves culturally important. Strictly observed tree ownership rules, as well as a cultural ban on tree cutting and branch lopping, have so far contributed to chiuri conservation. However, these rules are increasingly less adhered to. Other threats to chiuri sustainability are excessive flower foraging by bees (reducing pollen production) and bat hunting (reducing pollen transport). Further studies are needed to quantify these threats and to adjust forest and wildlife management practices so that the cultural landscape continues to provide multiple benefits to the Chepang people. Our study of the chiuri case attests to the usefulness of the cultural keystone species framework in landscape assessment for management and conservation.
... Instead, they have been contributing to protecting those plants. Indigenous knowledge of Chepang poses to manage the forest is environmentally friendly (Rijal 2010), but when population pressure on the forest increased, these traditions broke down. Therefore, comprehensive solutions to environmental management demand the incorporation of indigenous knowledge. ...
The Chepang community of Nepal has been knowingly and unknowing utilizing their indigenous knowledge in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in the form of societal functioning and cultural rituals. The study outlines best practices from indigenous knowledge interlinked with scientific knowledge and its contribution to DRR. Chepang community has developed mitigation and preparedness knowledge within their context, based on knowledge passed down from previous generations. The indigenous knowledge of Chepang has worked as the practiced indigenous solution to minimize the risk of natural hazards. Those applied skills can be documented as traditional innovation and technology. The study shows that the proper incorporation of positive aspects of indigenous knowledge of Chepang in the development plan will be a win–win for the indigenous Chapang community and local government. However, due to a lack of social innovation and handover approaches, indigenous knowledge of Chepang has not transformed adequately to the present generation. Furthermore, the younger generation’s lack of commitment and learning attitude is a significant threat in preserving that knowledge and skills.KeywordsIndigenous knowledgeChepangNepalDisaster risk reduction
The practice of common property forest management is long-established in Nepal. The concept of community forests, involving a partnership between local communities and the government forest department, has also been evolving for nearly 40 yr but institutional constraints and industrial forestry imperatives meant that it took over 25 yr for the concept to be realized in practice. Two case studies from a district in central Nepal suggest that indigenous forest management systems are of two main types. The first is generated, developed and sustained entirely by the community; the second is generated by internal initiative but then developed and sustained by a cooperative arrangement between the community and the forest department. Community forestry policy and practice should be flexible enough to accommodate both types. -from Authors
Commercial alpine medicinal plants are collected from the wild by local rural households throughout the Himalaya and sold in order to increase household incomes. Recent studies indicate that this annual trade amounts to thousands of tonnes of roots, rhizomes, tubers, leaves, etc., worth millions of US dollars. The main market is in India. Based on a national survey, including the most commonly traded species, and a village study this paper investigates the importance of the alpine medicinal plant trade at national and local levels in Nepal. The national survey included standardized open-ended interviews with 232 harvesters, 64 local traders, 66 central wholesalers, 47 regional wholesalers, and 16 production companies. The village survey is based on the daily records of household activities in 15 households in a one-year period. The annual Nepalese alpine and sub-alpine medicinal plant trade is conservatively estimated to vary from 480 to 2500 t with a total harvester value of US66.0 ± 99.0. The trade in 1997/98 amounted to 1600 t with a harvester value of US$2.3 million and an export value equivalent to 2.5% of total export from Nepal. Medicinal plant harvesting was found to constitute an integrated part of local livelihood strategies, contributing from 3 to 44% (average of 12%) of the annual household income. Importance at household level depended on land and animal holdings, and the availability of adult male labour. The validity and reliability of methods and analyses is evaluated, and issues of conservation and management of alpine medicinal plant species under the community forestry scheme are discussed.
Conservation scientists generally agree that many types of protected areas will be needed to protect tropical forests. But little is known of the comparative performance of inhabited and uninhabited reserves in slowing the most extreme form of forest disturbance: conversion to agriculture. We used satellite-based maps of land cover and fire occurrence in the Brazilian Amazon to compare the performance of large (> 10,000 ha) uninhabited (parks) and inhabited (indigenous lands, extractive reserves, and national forests) reserves. Reserves significantly reduced both deforestation and fire. Deforestation was 1.7 (extractive reserves) to 20 (parks) times higher along the outside versus the inside of the reserve perimeters and fire occurrence was 4 (indigenous lands) to 9 (national forests) times higher. No strong difference in the inhibition of deforestation (p = 0. 11) or fire (p = 0.34) was found between parks and indigenous lands. However, uninhabited reserves tended to be located away from areas of high deforestation and burning rates. In contrast, indigenous lands were often created in response to frontier expansion, and many prevented deforestation completely despite high rates of deforestation along their boundaries. The inhibitory effect of indigenous lands on deforestation was strong after centuries of contact with the national society and was not correlated with indigenous population density. Indigenous lands occupy one-fifth of the Brazilian Amazon-five times the area under protection in parks--and are currently the most important barrier to Amazon deforestation. As the protected-area network expands from 36% to 41% of the Brazilian Amazon over the coming years, the greatest challenge will be successful reserve implementation in high-risk areas of frontier expansion as indigenous lands are strengthened. This success will depend on a broad base of political support.
In the growing literature at the interface of rural livelihood improvement and conservation of natural forests, two overarching issues stand out: (1) How and to what extent use of forest resources do and can contribute to poverty alleviation and (2) How and to what extent poverty alleviation and forest conservation are and can be made convergent rather than divergent goals. This article summarizes and evaluates the state-of-the-art knowledge in these domains of thought and identifies priorities for future research.
The Community Forestry programme was formally launched in Nepal in 1978 with the enactment of the Panchayat Forest Rules and the Panchayat Protected Forest Rules. The Community Forestry policy along with Community Forestry legislation has been continuously reformed over time. These reforms have recognised the use rights of the local people in the management of forest resources and established them as managers. Since the inception twenty-four years ago the progress in policy shift has been tremendous. However, the actual implementation is still slow in pace. This paper aims to review and analyse the policy changes during this period and discusses the constraints and opportunities provided by the Community Forestry programme in Nepal.
Proponents of community conservation present it as a means of reconciling conservation and development objectives by ensuring that the interests of local people are taken into account in making trade-offs. Conservation critics see it as a challenge to the state-led, scientific management that is necessary to guarantee the preservation of biodiversity. In this paper, we argue that community conservation is not one thing but many. It is evolving both as a concept and as a practice that must be built on. It is not a project or policy ‘choice’ that can be simply accepted or rejected. The key questions about community conservation are who should set the objectives for conservation policy on the ground and how should trade-offs between the diverse objectives of different interests be negotiated.
Rural households throughout the Himalayas are regarded as dependent on non-timber forest products (NTFPs), but very few studies
have quantified this dependency. This case study, undertaken in two villages in the Central Himalayan foot hills in Nepal,
documents the absolute and relative importance of commercial NTFPs to rural household economies. Data were collected in a
one-year period and included interviews with 250 households using a semi-structured questionnaire and monthly interviews with
four sub-local NTFP traders, two local traders and two central wholesalers. The conservative estimate of NTFP-derived cash
income showed this to be a cornerstone in poorer household livelihood strategies and thus in poverty prevention. An annual
average of 578kg of commercial NTFPs was collected in the wild per household, providing poorer households with a cash income
share of 44–78%. Better off households are not NTFP dependent but rely on income from crop production and livestock. Based
on a net marketing margin analysis, showing that harvesters capture a large share of the Indian wholesaler price, it is argued
that there is scope for pursuing NTFP-based strategies for poverty reduction through leasehold forestry and agroforestry.
Both these options are compatible with conserving forest cover and forest corridor functions and may thus present a win–win
scenario for livelihood improvement and conservation.
KeywordsNon-timber forest products–Marketing margins–Poverty prevention–Conservation–Chepang–Nepal
This paper describes the variety of management practices for the Butter tree (locally called Chiuri) in Makawanpur district, Nepal. Chiuri is a highly valued multipurpose species which has been customarily used and managed by local communities on state forest lands and on unregistered and registered private lands. As a result of their high value of the trees to local people, in the early 1990s the District Forest Officer issued tree certificates for the trees on state forest lands to their ancestral users. In addition to this pseudo-legitimisation of private access to and use of Chiuri trees on state forest lands, private tree tenure rights exist for (un)registered private lands. As a result of the specific tree tenure conditions, the local pattern of management practices for Chiuri is different from the usual tree management patterns under different land tenure regimes. Often, on state and community forest lands indigenous tree management practices are restricted to socially-oriented control measures on resource extraction, whereas on private lands biologically-oriented management practices may also take place. The most intensive tree management practices usually occur on well-established private lands. In contrast, the management practices for Chiuri trees on state forest lands involve both socially-oriented and biologically-oriented management practices and the tree management itself is more intensive on the unregistered than on the registered private lands. The Chiuri management practices have a positive effect on forest conservation, and so the example of Chiuri user certificates on state forest lands provides an interesting alternative to the Nepalese strategy of stimulating community management as a means of forest protection.
Business Symposium on Herbs extracts/Essential oils, Nepal-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry
- K Durbeck
- A Wildner
Topo sheets no. 2784 07A and 2784 03C, Survey Department, Ministry of Land Reform, His Majesty's Government of Nepal
- Hmgn
Kathmandu: Chepang Resources and Development
- T R Bhattarai
- Ives Jack D.
Customary Use Rights and Leasehold Group Approach for the management of degraded Forest land. Paper presented in the International Association for the Study of Common Property 6th Annual Conference
- B K Singh