Bhim Adhikari

Does collective action sequester carbon ? the case of the Nepal community forestry program

This paper estimate the effects of collective action in Nepal’s community forests on four ecological measures of forest quality. Forest user group collective action is identified through membership in the Nepal Community Forestry Programme, pending membership in the program, and existence of a forest user group whose leaders can identify the year the group was formed. This last, broad category is important, because many community forest user groups outside the program show significant evidence of important collective action. The study finds that presumed open access forests have only 21 to 57 percent of the carbon of forests governed under collective action. In several models, program forests sequester more carbon than communities outside the program. This implies that paying new program groups for carbon sequestration credits under the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Developing may be especially appropriate. However, marginal carbon sequestration effects of program participation are smaller and less consistent than those from two broader measures of collective action. The main finding is that within the existing institutional environment, collective action broadly defined has very important, positive, and large effects on carbon stocks and, in some models, on other aspects of forest quality.

The Effect of the Nepal Community Forestry Program on Equity in Benefit Sharing

We assessed the effectiveness of Nepalese Community Forestry Program (CFP) in increasing local perceptions of equity in benefit sharing. Our aim is to inform emerging forest policy that aims to mitigate climate change, promote biodiversity conservation, and address poverty and livelihood needs. We collected data from 1,300 households from nationally representative samples of 65 CFP communities and 65 non-CFP communities. By using a robust method of covariates matching, we demonstrate the unique and positive effect of the CFP on perception of equity in benefit sharing at national level and among poor, Dalits, indigenous and women-headed households and in the hills (except Terai). Our results suggest the need to continue the current benefit-sharing practices in CFP except in the Terai, where such practices need to be reviewed. However, caution should be taken in implementing emerging carbon-focused forestry so that it does not alter the CFP management sufficiently to conflict with equity goals and upend the generally positive effects on equity.