Reductions in deforestation and poverty from decentralized forest management in Nepal

Abstract

Since the 1980’s, decentralized forest management has been promoted as a way to enhance sustainable forest use and reduce rural poverty. Rural communities manage increasing amounts of the world’s forests, yet rigorous evidence using large-N data on whether community-based forest management (CFM) can jointly reduce both deforestation and poverty remains scarce. We estimate the impacts of CFM using a large longitudinal dataset that integrates national census-based poverty measures with high-resolution forest cover change data, and near-complete information on Nepal’s >18,000 community forests. We compare changes in forest cover and poverty from 2000–2012 for subdistricts with or without CFM arrangements, but that are otherwise similar in terms of socioeconomic and biophysical baseline measures. Our results indicate that CFM has, on average, contributed to significant net reductions in both poverty and deforestation across Nepal, and that CFM increases the likelihood of win–win outcomes. We also find that the estimated reduced deforestation impacts of community forests are lower where baseline poverty levels are high, and greater where community forests are larger and have existed longer. These results indicate that greater benefits may result from longer-term investments and larger areas committed to CFM, but that community forests established in poorer areas may require additional support to minimize tradeoffs between socioeconomic and environmental outcomes. Rural communities manage much of the world’s forests, but the effects on both landscapes and people are still unclear. This study estimates the impacts of such community-based forest management in Nepal from 2000–2012 and finds significant net reductions in both deforestation and poverty.

Full text

AnAlysis
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0277-3
1Global Development Institute, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK. 2Forests and Livelihoods: Assessment, Research and Engagement Network,
School for Environment and Sustainability, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. 3Department of Economics, Amherst College, Amherst,
MA, USA. 4Department of Environmental Studies, Amherst College, Amherst, MA, USA. 5ForestAction Nepal, Lalitpur, Nepal. 6School of Natural and
Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK. 7School for Environment and Sustainability, The University of Michigan, Michigan, MI, USA.
8These authors contributed equally: K.R.E.S., M.J.W. and A.A. *e-mail: johan.oldekop@manchester.ac.uk
Forests are critical to sustainable development1,2. They regulate
climate, sequester carbon, harbour biodiversity, and contribute
to national incomes and local livelihoods3. Over the past four
decades, governments and international organizations have pro-
moted decentralized community-based forest management (CFM)
to achieve sustainable forest use and reduce rural poverty4. In decen-
tralized decision-making arrangements, the primary responsibility
for day-to-day management rests with forest user communities.
Ideally, this allows communities to make better use of their time
and place-specific knowledge to promote more efficient, equitable
and sustainable multi-functional landscapes5.
Local communities now legally manage approximately 13% of
the world’s forests6. Nonetheless, debates about whether CFM truly
reduces forest loss and alleviates poverty continue7,8. Case studies
from Latin America, Africa and South Asia show that some CFM
initiatives have improved forest and livelihood outcomes9,10, but that
others have not achieved the intended objectives4,11. The vast major-
ity of existing studies have focused on limited sets of cases, and have
used qualitative assessments of poverty and livelihood outcomes that
are difficult to compare across space and over time7. These studies
have helped to identify how land tenure, local autonomy and collec-
tive action may contribute to effective and equitable CFM, but have
not tested whether CFM programmes lead to net environmental
and socioeconomic improvements at national scales7. Some studies
use more rigorous evaluations of CFM but they generally focus on
single outcomes, studying the relationship between CFM and either
forests12–14 or poverty15,16—often at single points in time17,18.
We analyse forest cover change and poverty alleviation out-
comes of CFM for the case of Nepal using a high-spatial-resolution,
national-level, longitudinal dataset (see Methods). Our study makes
three key advances. First, we analyse the average effects of CFM at
a national scale using a near-complete census of Nepal’s 18,321 reg-
istered community forests. Second, we combine these data with
subdistrict-level, national census-based multidimensional poverty
measures (2001–2011) and high-resolution forest cover change
data (2000–2012). Finally, given the multiple drivers of deforesta-
tion19 and poverty alleviation20, our approach aims to separate CFM
impacts from other potential socioeconomic and biophysical fac-
tors affecting the establishment of CFM that could also impact for-
est and poverty outcomes (see Methods). Specifically, we combine
statistical matching and multiple regression analyses to control for
potential geographic, economic and political drivers of outcomes at
the subdistrict level. These include: slope, elevation, precipitation,
population density, agricultural effort, international migration,
travel time to market and population centres, distance to district
headquarters, presence of protected areas, and baseline measures of
poverty and forest cover, as well as administrative-level fixed effects
that control for factors common to each district, such as government
investments in education or health. These methods seek to ensure
that treated and control groups are similar to each other21, and fol-
low established quasi-experimental approaches to the evaluation of
conservation interventions22–24. Our identification of impacts relies
on plausibly exogenous conditional variation in CFMs arising from
the history of multiple non-government organizations, government
agencies and international donors, operating in non-systematic
ways across time and space (see Methods). We test the robustness of
our results with respect to potential unmeasured confounding vari-
ables, such as other government programmes that may be correlated
Reductions in deforestation and poverty from
decentralized forest management in Nepal
Johan A. Oldekop 1,2*, Katharine R. E. Sims 3,4,8, Birendra K. Karna5, Mark J. Whittingham6,8 and
Arun Agrawal 2,7,8
Since the 1980’s, decentralized forest management has been promoted as a way to enhance sustainable forest use and reduce
rural poverty. Rural communities manage increasing amounts of the world’s forests, yet rigorous evidence using large-N data
on whether community-based forest management (CFM) can jointly reduce both deforestation and poverty remains scarce.
We estimate the impacts of CFM using a large longitudinal dataset that integrates national census-based poverty measures
with high-resolution forest cover change data, and near-complete information on Nepal’s >18,000 community forests. We
compare changes in forest cover and poverty from 2000–2012 for subdistricts with or without CFM arrangements, but that
are otherwise similar in terms of socioeconomic and biophysical baseline measures. Our results indicate that CFM has, on
average, contributed to significant net reductions in both poverty and deforestation across Nepal, and that CFM increases
the likelihood of win–win outcomes. We also find that the estimated reduced deforestation impacts of community forests are
lower where baseline poverty levels are high, and greater where community forests are larger and have existed longer. These
results indicate that greater benefits may result from longer-term investments and larger areas committed to CFM, but that
community forests established in poorer areas may require additional support to minimize tradeoffs between socioeconomic
and environmental outcomes.
NATURE SUSTAINABILITY | VOL 2 | MAY 2019 | 421–428 | www.nature.com/natsustain 421
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