Project period: October 2009-December 2010
Financial support: Paul K. Feyerabend Foundation

Nature conservation through protected areas has undergone dramatic paradigm shifts globally in the recent years. Local and indigenous communities as key actors in conserving biodiversity have been gaining increased attention and momentum today. Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs), an innovative type of governance of protected areas rather being an oldest form of conservation innovation have captured consciousness in conservation movement in the last half a decade. Largely unrecognised by state legislations and unaccounted by official protected areas systems, debates around recognition and support to ICCAs, its’ immense potentials in enhancing and complementing the goal of conservation are growing. The project in Nepal particularly aims to forge a networking among potential and existing ICCAs across Nepal. It is being executed towards building a national network through engagement of community leaders and local representatives in exchanging their experiences, lessons and constraints they are grappling with. Processes of national networking are geared towards promotion and advocacy of ICCA supportive policies in Nepal. Towards these a national consultative workshop, regional workshops in several parts of Nepal have been facilitated by ForestAction, two policy briefs based on a study has also been published to enhance the discourse of ICCAs and inform policy makers about the significance of recognising and supporting ICCAs in Nepal.

Project period: December 2009-February 2010
Financial support: The World Bank through Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation

The consortium of the seven organisations including ForestAction Nepal, Federation of Community Forest Users’ Nepal ( FECOFUN), Nepal Foresters Association ( NFA), Dalit Alliance for Natural Resource (DANAR), Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN), Association of Collaborative Forest Users’ Nepal (ACOFUN) and Himalayan Grass-roots Women Natural Resources Management Association (HIMAWANTI) had signed contract with the REDD and Climate Change Cell of the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation, Nepal aiming to provide service for Preparation of Stakeholder Consultation and Outreach Plan. The project has been leaded by ForestAction Nepal. The project has covered 16 districts (Dhankuta, Dolakha, Jhapa, Morang, Solukhumbu, Parsa, Sindhuli, Rasuwa, Kaski, Parbat, Kapilvastu, Surkhet, Bardia, Dang, Dadeldhura, Chitwan) representing all five development regions and three ecological zones. Major activities of the project include desk review, consultation workshops from community level to national level, stakeholder analysis, development and testing of a range of extension materials through different medias, assessment of resource centers, experts opinion collection and documentations. The project will be accomplished by the end of February with preparation of a comprehensive consultation and participation plan and other supporting documents.

Project period: 2008 - 2011
Financial support: Research Into Use (RIU) Program of DFID

Reducing Poverty through Innovation System in Forestry (RPISF) is an initiative to bring research into policy and practices, towards enabling forest dependant people to learn and know more about the environment which in turn enhances their livelihood. The project is being jointly implemented by five different organisations and led by ForestAction. It aims at promoting research innovations for active, equitable and effective management of natural resources within the framework of community forestry in Nepal. The coalition partners of this initiative are: Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal (FECOFUN); Nepal Herbs and Herbal Product Association (NEHHPA); Nepal Forum for Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ); and Central Department of Sociology/Anthropology of Tribhuvan University (CDSA, TU). The initiative seeks to disseminate, adapt and utilise innovations in three project sites in central Nepal which are Lamatar of Lalitpur, Nawalpur of Nawalparasi, and Kushmisera of Baglung districts, directly benefiting 20,000 people including significant number of poor and marginalised social groups from 60 CFUGs and diffuse lessons across the country.

Project period: October 2009-May 2010
Financial support: World Agroforestry Center

ForestAction in collaboration with ICRAF and ICIMOD is conducting a study on Reducing Emission from All Land Use (REALU). While Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is being considered as one of the major schemes for climate change mitigation, this study explores the pros and cons of REALU in the context of Nepal’s strategic direction in participating in global climate negotiations.

Project period: January 2009-March 2010
Financial support: Canadian Cooperation Office

The idea of the project is to enhance debates and discussions among knowledge networks, discourse coalitions, epistemic communities and the opinion makers around the discourse of natural resource management and federalism in Nepal. The goal of this project is to generate new insights and reframe the current discourse of new constitution making processes so as to contribute to the negotiation and delineation of federal states in Nepal that reflects constitutional provision of community rights on natural resources and equity in terms of natural assets distribution. The project activities are shaped around following three key objectives. • Develop analytical insights and evidence into how natural resource rights, equity and justice can be integrated into the new federal governance structure; • Facilitate critical and reflective discourse and deliberative processes around federalism in Nepal; and • Provide recommendations to the Constituent Assembly (CA) on the natural resource justice dimension in the federal governance in Nepal. In particular, the project is making its efforts to engage representatives of civil societies, political parties, intellectuals, media and researchers in critical discourses and deliberation with regard to how structure of federalism can and should account for the variation, values, characteristics and distribution of different types of natural resources (mainly forest, land, water, minerals and other economic resources) to create equitable states of new Nepal.