Community Forestry Management: Mechanisms behind a success story in Nepal

Over the past 25 years, the government of Nepal implemented one of the most ambitious and comprehensive programs of decentralization of forest management in the world. This major institutional change resulted in the transfer of the management of almost 50% of Nepal forests to no less than 18 000 Community Forest User Groups (CFUG). More than a third of the Nepalese population are directly involved in the management of forests, a key natural resource in everyday life. They provide not only firewood or timber, but also fodder for livestock, fruits, nuts and medicinal plants. The success of the program has been widely advertised and received a lot of international attention, for instance by UNEP (Sukhdev and Nuttall, 2010).