The effects of the Nepal community forestry program on biodiversity conservation and carbon storage

Approximately 15.5% of global forest is controlled by ~1 billion local people and the area under community control is increasing. However, there is limited empirical evidence as to whether community control is effective in providing critical global ecosystem services, such as biodiversity conservation and carbon storage. We assess the effectiveness of one example of community-controlled forest, Nepal’s Community Forestry Program (CFP), at providing biodiversity conservation and carbon storage. Using data from 620 randomly selected CFP and non-CFP forest plots, we apply a robust matching method based on covariates to estimate whether CFPs are associated with greater biodiversity conservation or carbon storage. Our results reveal a significant positive effect of CFP on biodiversity, which is robust against the influence of unobserved covariates. Our results also suggest a significant negative effect of the CFP on aboveground tree and sapling carbon (AGC) at the national scale (-15.11 Mg C ha-1). However, the CFP has a mixed effect on carbon across geographic and topographic regions and in forests with different canopy covers. Though there were no significant effects of the CFP on AGC at lower altitudes, in the Terai or hill regions, and under closed canopies, there were positive effects in open canopies (25.84 Mg C ha-1) at lower slopes (25.51 Mg C ha-1) and negative effects at higher altitudes (-22.81 Mg C ha-1) and higher slopes (-17.72 Mg C ha-1). Our sensitivity analysis revealed that the positive effects are robust to unobserved covariates, which is not true for the negative results. In aggregate, our results demonstrate that CFP can be an effective forest management strategy to contribute to global ecosystem services such as biodiversity, and to a lesser extent carbon.

1.5.9. Do you believe that on matters related to natural resource management people/members in the community are trustworthy?

Additional Questions on Community Rules NOTE TO ENUMERATORS: RULES AND REGULATIONS CAN BE INFORMAL AND NEED NOT BE TRULY LEGISLATED. PLEASE ENCOURAGE RESPONDENTS TO THINK BROADLY ABOUT THEIR RULES AND REGULATIONS
1.6. Does the community have any formal, informal or customaryrules and regulations that govern the access, use (harvesting), and maintenance (management) of the forest?
q Yes q No THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS SHOULD BE ANSWERED ONLY IF THE COMMUNITY HAS SOME TYPES OF RULES AND REGULATIONS 1.6.1. Do these rules and regulation exist in writing?
(1) Yes, they are in written form.
(2) No, they are oral ones 1.6.2. Are specific individuals in this community of users (user group) responsible for making the rules about the forest?
q Yes q No Strongly agree(5) Agree(4) Neutral (3) Disagree (2) Strongly disagree (1) 1.6.3 Most individuals (members) affected by the operational rules of the community are included in the group that can modify rules 1.6.4. Who enforces the rules and regulations (by-laws) that are created by the community? _______________ (1) By members of the community itself.
(2) By officials (guards) selected by the community (3) By external officials appointed by a government.
(4) Others ways (describe) __________________________________________ 1.6.5. If enforced by officials selected by the community, how does the community select officials (guards) for protection of the community forest/woodlot? What are the criteria to be selected? ____________. (1) Decided in a meeting by the users (2) anybody interested can be a member of the officials (voluntary) (3) Other (describe) _______________________ 1.6 .6. On whom does the community enforce the rules and regulations? ________________ (multiple answers possible) (1) Morning and evening (2) Every morning (3) Every evening (4) Others (specify) ________________ 1.6.7.4. If through patrolling by members, how are they rewarded? ____________________________________________ 1.6.8. Can the community change the rules and regulations that govern the access, use and maintenance (management) of the forest resource whenever the need arises?
q Yes q No 1.6.8.1. If yes, what is the procedure/mechanism involved to change these rules? ____________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ 1.6.9. In your observation, do individuals in the community (user group) follow the rules and regulations for accessing and harvesting products from the forest or using the forest for non-consumptive purposes? _______________ (1) Rarely or never (2) Sometimes (3) About half the time (4) Most of the time (5) Yes, almost always 1.6.10.Has there been any incident of an external government agent in one way or another using their authority to support those who refuse to follow the rules of the community managing or protecting the forest?
q Yes q No 1.6.11Do you have any penalty system? ________________________ q Yes q No 1.6.11.1. If yes, who decides what kind of penalty is appropriate when rule is observed to be violated or broken? _____ (1) The guard patrolling the community forest (2) A vote of individuals is the user group at a meeting (3) A vote of an executive committee of the user group/community (4) A vote of individuals in the user group/community and other authorized users of the forest/woodlot (5) Others (describe) _____________________________________________________   Addressing issues of women, poor and excluded groups Enhancing good governance Improving forest quality 5.4.20 What are the areas of improvement in FUG to address issues of women, poor and excluded groups; enhance good governance; and improve forest quality?
Addressing issues of women, poor and excluded groups Enhancing good governance Improving forest quality