Government of Nepal
Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation
Department of Forests

Community Forestry (CF) is one of the priority programs. Bilateral donors are also involved in the development of Community Forestry Programme. About 35 percent of the total development budget allocated to MFSC is spent on Community Forestry Program. About 60 percent of the total development budget of the CF program is funded through foreign assistance. The major donors are DFID, SDC, AusAID, USAID, and GTZ.

Main Objective: To achieve sustainable management of forest resources by converting accessible national forests into Community Forests on a phase wise manner.

Strategy: Handing over of accessible forest areas as Community Forests to the Forest User Groups for management and utilization of forest resources.

About 1.45 million households or 35 percent of the population of Nepal is involved in community forestry management program. To date, 14,337 Community Forestry User Groups (CFUGs) have been formed of which 778 are composed of women only committee members. A total of 1,219,272 hectares of National forest have been handed over as community forests and 1,647,717 households have benefited

Impacts of Community Forests

• Restored degraded forest land

• Resumed greenery

• Increased Bio-diversity

• Increased supply of forest products

• Empowered women, poor and the disadvantaged group

• Promoted income generation and community development activities

• Improved Livelihood