Community-based leasehold forestry in Nepal: a genuine tenure reform in progress?

In Nepal, community management is primarily applied as community forestry (CF) and leasehold forestry (LF), although a third approach, called Community Forest Management (CFM), has also been tried in the southern plains area called the Terai. The Private Forest Nationalization Act of 1957 is seen as a turning point in the development of legislation in the Nepalese forestry sector. This act abolished the private ownership of forests, which were largely controlled by elites. A consequence, though, was that this change resulted in large-scale deforestation, as forests beyond the reach of government agencies were effectively turned into open access resources (NPC, 1991; Gautam et al., 2004; Nagendra and Gokhale, 2008). Even after a series of legislative reforms during the 1960s, forest areas were still declining and, by the mid-1970s, the Forestry Department realized the importance of community participation in forest management (Talbott and Khadka, 1994). This recognition was an important step toward developing partici - patory approaches to forest management, which were formally included in govern - ment policy after the National Forestry Plan of 1976 and subsequent legislation in 1978. The Master Plan for the Forestry Sector (1988) firmly established Com - munity Forestry (CF) as the main forest management policy in Nepal (Acharya, 2002).