REDD+ and the Tenure Mosaics of Nepalls Terai Arc Landscape
Jhaveri, Nayna & Adhikari Jagannath
It is largely accepted that the successful establishment of incentives for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) requires sustained attention to how land and forest tenure affects both social and environmental performance. Since Nepalls Emission Reduction Program Idea Note proposes a large-scale transfer of government-managed forests (300,000 ha) in twelve districts of the Terai (from Rautahat to Kanchanpur) to either community forests (CF) or collaborative forest management (CoF) to reach emission reduction goals, this paper compares how their different tenure institutional and property rights arrangements will affect the effective and equitable implementation of the ER Program. The paper firstly concludes that CF, as a secure tenure institutional platform established in law, has a viable governance system that can functionally meet REDD+ objectives with enhanced operational planning, capacity building support, and enforcement of law. Therefore, communities in close proximity to forests should be provided with the necessary support to establish CFUGs. Where large, contiguous blocks of government-managed forests remain, these can be apportioned to CoF, a modality established through policy directive. While CoF fulfils an important niche in forest management (meeting distant user needs), its forest governance system is still in its early stages and needs significant improvement.
Event: Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty 2015
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