Livelihoods Strategies among Users in Community Forests, A Study from Dang District Nepal

Ganesh Raj Acharya, Krishna Raj Tiwari, Sanjaya Acharya

Abstract: The paper intends to capture the livelihoods strategies adapted in the community forestry. Specifically, paper explores how the livelihoods strategy differs at the household level and user group level. The study was conducted in seven community forests of Dang district, Nepal. The household (HH) level survey was conducted among 570 households to explore livelihood strategies at HH and user level. Similarly, the focus group discussion and key informant interview was conducted among users and stakeholders to get insights. At the household level, fourteen different livelihoods strategies were found practised. Among them, some of the strategies are innovative in the local context. Similarly, five livelihoods? strategies were observed in Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) level. The community livelihoods strategy is focused in conservation and income with long term benefit. The household strategy is focused on immediate benefit and categorically fourteen different livelihood strategies have been found adopted. At the household level, subsistence agriculture is still dominant. The introduction of apiculture, vegetable tunnel, and practice of integrated farming with diverse category is relatively a recent concept among users. This is getting momentum for its immediate benefits to the HHs. Similarly, the Eta correlation measured the relation among the adapted strategies and income of households. The Eta correlation of household income and HH livelihood strategies indicates the association is very weak (0.19) and ethnicity has very high level of association with income (0.740). The CFUGs have institutional policy of livelihoods intervention to address conservation agenda. The major focus of the livelihoods strategies of Community Forest is to support poorest of the users. It was explored that the livelihood options provided are not yet adequate.

Keywords: Livelihoods Strategies, Community Forest, Users