Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, May 11:

Federation of Community Forestry User’s Group Nepal (FECOFUN), which is already waging protest programmes against the government’s claim to share revenue from the sale of forest products, is now irked by the government’s new initiative on collaborative forest management.

The organisation said that the Guidelines on Collaborative Forest Managment-2004 did not command the support of the locals and was imposed by the government. The district forest coordination committee, and not the locals, has a major say on this model and there are hardly any clauses that empower us, they say.

The government has formulated the concept and guidelines to address various issues associated with the Terai forests according to the concept of Collaborative Forest Management (CoFM) in the Forest Sector Policy 2000. “The guidelines only give limited benefits to people and we are against it,” Bhola Bhattarai, general-secretary of Federation of Community Forestry User’s Group Nepal (FECOFUN) said. The umbrella organisation of over 12 thousands user’s group is carrying various protest programme against the guidelines. Over 1500 farmers took part in a 15-km cycle rally from Hariban to Phuljo in Sarlahi recently to protest the move. The locals are also demanding that the goverment handover 66 proposed forest groups.

Referring to the argument, the community forestry has not been successful in the Terai and Inner Terai, Bhattarai said. However, government officials refute the claim. The overall assumption of CoFM is to create a sense of ownership among stakeholders to the programme that would result in the sustainable conservation practices at local level,said Keshav Raj Kandel, Deputy Director-General at Department of Forest (DoF). He also said that that the government did not want to trouble the people who are the real beneficiaries.