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Component 1:
Institutionalising sustainable natural resource management systems

The main goal of this dimension is to promote the good governance of CFUGs, primarily through the practice of gender and social inclusion and equity.

The fact that the MFSC, with NACRMLP’s help, adopted a Human Resource Strategy and GSE vision will go a long way to making sure that good governance principles are mainstreamed, as will the establishment of a national training-of-trainers (ToT) programme which emphasises participatory development principles. Now that they can access training materials on the MFSC website, more non-government facilitators have increased CFUG activities and should continue to do so.

Another promising step is the increased inclusion of women and disadvantaged groups in decision-making and other roles. Stage One developments along institutional lines included the fact that more CFUG constitutions explicitly endorsed equity, representation of women and the disadvantages in executive committees grew more balanced, and women’s empowerment sub-groups were established. Economic changes reinforced the resultant enhancement in status and voice. Livelihood improvement plans (LIP) included more pro-poor, pro-women and pro-disadvantaged fund utilisation, including savings and credit programmes, small enterprise development, soft loans, allocation of communal land for forage, forage slip production, NTFP collection, and training.

Issues that Stage One of the Project was not able to address included abating the fear that some CFUG members have about engaging in income generation only to have the Maoists seize their profits. More significant was the poor synergy between the Project and line agencies. The Technical Advisory Group (TAG) felt that the presence of parallel structures and the discrepancies between MFSC and project planning, in particular, needed to be addressed if the handover to appropriate stakeholder partners was going to be successful.

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Component 2:
Income generation and equity within rural communities

Stage One intended to ensure that CFUG members would know how to create a business plan (BP) to run a profitable commercial enterprise based on timber or NTFPs, and would distribute the benefits equitably as provided for in their OPs.

Progress has been made in training local NGSP (facilitators), including some from DoF and NGOs, to help CFUGs prepare BPs; in actually preparing BPs, especially for log sales and for NTFPs like lapsi candy; and in setting up networks. A key shift in attitude from a forest protection to a forest utilisation ethic has been noted. The disadvantaged have not been forgotten: women have received support in fodder production and kitchen and vegetable gardening and the poor have received assistance in forage production and NTFP collection.

A number of hurdles remained at the end of Stage One. CFUGs did not yet display the needed business acumen to be able to establish resource-based commercial enterprises. The TAG felt they would require much more technical support. Another substantial need was for a simplified approach to incorporating LIPs in forest OPs. The difficulties encountered by (failure of) two community sawmills showed the danger of investing in activities without a realistic assessment of the risks of attempting community management, particularly given the major constraints on effective market linkages.

Community saw mills were set up in Chaubas and Shreechhap in 1995 and 2001 respectively in an attempt at vertical integration which would bring the CFUGs the best possible returns from their pine plantations. Furniture construction and the sale of planks initially increased in Chaubas, but has since declined. The mill in Shreechhap was temporarily closed for many reasons: the changing composition of the executive committee and its lack of business management skills, no local operator and insufficient benefits, and poor security.

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Component 3:
Sustainable resource management

The Project sought, in Stage One, to build the motivation and skill of CFUGs to revise their OPs to include pro-active sustainable harvesting of forest resources and a commitment to the equitable distribution of benefits.

It succeeded in working with the DoF to simplify the processes of conducting forest inventories and revising OPs and to launch the cascade training of DFOs and NGO staff in CF approaches. Already, almost three dozen plans have been revised and approved by the DoF. Another positive step was collaborating with the DSCWM so that this department could broaden its scope outside of watershed boundaries. In the effort, community forage blocks were established and fodder plantation was used to stabilise landslides.

The main gap in this component is insufficient knowledge. It is not yet clear, for example, if the DSCWM initiatives will bring about positive changes; if it turns out that they do, they need to be better integrated with other Project activities. CFUGs do not have the technical skill to manage plantations well and are too passive in their approach. Their knowledge of sustainable NTFP management is similarly scant. The TAG concluded that Stage Two would have to do more to encourage sustainable harvesting.

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Component 4:
Upper-slope, community-based resource management

Under this component fall exploratory activities designed to uncover the special needs of upper slopes. A baseline survey and situational analysis of the Bhairabkunda Lekh area has documented traditional NRM systems, proposed a tentative strategy for community forest identification, and suggested options for high-altitude forest management. The development of a modified version of the Middle Hill CFUG development process was begun and trial interventions in livestock and pasture management initiated. The Project also prepared a strategy for funding upper-slope management and laid out silvicultural prescriptions for oak forest management.

Little advancement was made in this component due to the worsening conflict between Maoists and government forces, but the work which was done underscored the need for developing specific and tailored approaches to community forestry and livelihoods improvement. What worked in the Middle Hills cannot be blindly applied lock, stock and barrel elsewhere.

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Component 5:
Project management

The two main expected outcomes of this component were the mainstreaming of GSE and close collaboration with GoN to make sure stakeholder partners uptake all Project activities successfully.

Mainstreaming GSE was developed through self-awareness monitoring for all staff and the establishment of a committee to review progress bi-monthly. The Project planning team for the final stage included DFOs and long-term advisors are working with a newly established Project Management Committee (PMC) in the MFSC. It was expected that these steps would smooth the transition.

Although the TAG, assessing complaints of widening disparities between the poor and disadvantaged and the elite, recommended extending the Project to more poverty-stricken and vulnerable groups, the Project has decided to consolidate its activities because the timeframe for Stage Two - just one year - is so short. The TAG also recommended that local partners, community-based organisations and NGOs and the like, be mobilised as they can achieve better penetration and therefore reduce antagonism.