Forest Users’ Perspectives on the Future of Community-based Forest Management in the Changing Socio-Ecological System in the Mountain Region of Nepal

The Community Forestry (CF) program in Nepal is often lauded as a successful global exemplar of participatory resource management for ecological restoration, biodiversity enhancement, and rural development. While the CF program has reportedly achieved its initial goal of forest restoration and biodiversity improvement in the mountain region of Nepal, there have been dynamic shifts in forest-people relations due to rapid changes in the socio-economic, ecological, and political landscapes of rural livelihoods, raising concerns about the effectiveness and sustainability of the CF program. In 2023, we conducted a survey of community forest users (N = 873) in two rural districts of Nepal to evaluate the factors influencing the perceived future of CF in Nepal in changing contexts. Our empirical model is grounded on Ostrom’s social-ecological system (SES) framework, which allows us to analyze a variety of socio-ecological, governance, and resource factors that describe local people's perceptions on the future of the CF program toward transformative change. Despite the growing gap between people and forests in the current socio-economic condition, the majority of respondents (67%) expressed high optimism about the CF program in the study region, highlighting the ecosystem and biodiversity values of conserving mountain forests. Results suggest that long-term migration, human-wildlife conflicts, off-farm income, and CFUGs' engagement with local forestry officials are significant factors explaining the positive outlook of CF in Nepal. Conversely, we identify crop raiding by wild animals, female household heads, and local government’s involvement as significant negative factors affecting the perceived future of community forestry in Nepal. Human-wildlife conflicts and cropland abandonment as growing negative externalities of forest expansion and biodiversity enhancement were rated as the main threat for sustaining the CF program and agriculture-based rural livelihood in the mountain regions. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for revising and transforming CF programs and policies to adapt to changing socio-economic and governance contexts and revitalizing local collective efforts for sustainable collective actions for transformative pathways and biodiversity improvement across the world.