Looking REDD at landscape level: learning from CBNRM in Nepal
Naya Sharma PaudelDil Bahadur Khatri
Outline
• Experiences of CF, watershed and landscape level forest management initiatives
• REDD/PES piloting at different scale
• Lessons and insights on institutional aspects
Community forestry: a successful model
• Government’s major programme• Over 18000 community groups (35%
of pop)• A quarter of forest area under CF• Regeneration of once barren hills
despite all gloomy predictions • Substantial livelihoods benefits,
community infrastructure, social services
Examples: ACAP (in 1986), buffer zone (in 1996), terai arc landscape & eastern Himalayan landscape (in late 1990s), protected forests (2010)Structural asymmetry: Three DFOs with their territorial authorities; FECOFUN organised at district level Conflicting mandate: Programme relies on forest authority, Local governments have mandates for infrastructure development, not conservation
Watershed and PAs: narrow focus on forests
Examples: Western Terai Arc Landscape, Kailash Sacred Landscape; Sacred Himalaya Landscape
Landscape conservation: multiple challenges
3. No effective mechanism to deal with diverse actors4. Undefined accountability structure – blame each other
1. Narrow focus on forest, biodiversity 2. Deforestation and degradation at high level
Economic Increased demand
for forest products Increased access to
market High price of
substitute Poverty and high
dependency on forests
Socio-political Prolonged political
transition, instability
Differentiated and fragile society
Rent seeking behaviour
Demographic drivers Population
growth Migration Identity
movements
Technological drivers Poor technology
in forest management
Low agriculture productivity
Policy, institution &governance
1.Poor transparency and participation
2.Weak law enforcement
3.Corruption 4.Weak tenure
Unsustainable extraction of forest products Illegal logging Fuelwood collection Grazing NTFPs collection
Agriculture Sukumbasisettle
ments Gradual
encroachment Shifting
cultivation
Infrastructure Road
contruction Hydro-power Mining Urbanisation Industrial area Buildings
Others Forest fire Invasive species
Agriculture, infrastructure and energy are key non-forestry drivers of deforestation
Economic, socio-political and governance related issues are at the heart of deforestation
Piloting of watershed level REDD
• A ‘multi-stakeholder’ advisory committee at national and at watershed level
• Internal monitoring but independent verification
• Bundling of CFUGs at watershed level
• Core forest management functions at CFUG level
• REDD-Net has become instrumental for effective coordination among CFUGs and project implementation
• Uneasy relation between REDD-net and FECOFUN (REDD-Net is seeking formal identity including mandate to manage fund that creates latent conflict with FECOFUN)
• Challenges of integrating watershed level institutions to political and administrative bodies (DDC, DFO, DADO, DFCC or other M-SHs bodies)
Institutional misfit
PES initiatives in Kulekhani watershed
12.5% of electricity tax goes to local
region for watershed
protection
DDC allocates 20% of this sum to the special fund for upstrea
m
8 VDCs in the
region equally divide this
money
Major spending in
road construction
Sedimentation has
increased due to roads
Poor ecosystem services due to
• No watershed level institution for planning and implementation
• Program relied on local government that spends on roads
• Poor monitoring (of fund use and ecosystem services)
Scale Management regime Experiences
Forest patch Community forestry Strong robust institutions, clear benefit distribution arrangements
Watershed PES piloting (Kulekhani), REDD piloting (3 sites)
Some level of confusion over benefit sharing, high transaction costs
Landscape Terai arc landscape, Sacred Himalayan landscape
No compatible institution operate at this scale, external agency facilitates the project
Experiences of NRM at different scale
Key lessons• Grassroots institutions are robust, multi-purpose,
• Watershed level institutions are beginning to develop as federated bodies
• There are no organic, indigenous institutions or compatible administrative agencies at landscape level. Projects structures manage such areas
• Higher level resource management initiative narrowly focus on forest/forestry and have failed to establish effective cross-sectoral coordination
• Larger emission reduction potential
• Biodiversity hotspot (Potential co-benefit)
• Inhabited by Tharu Community (Indigenous People)
• No match between administrative and ecological boundaries
• No single authority to manage resources, monitor and store data
• No established governance system (community institutions, CSOs and private sector organised and functionl at this level)
Government initiatives to develop ER-PIN for TAL
Key messages • Robust institutions with strong collective action are key to resource
conservation, effective monitoring and equitable benefit sharing
• Resource conservation initiatives at higher scale have been less successful primarily due to lack of political, administrative and civic institutions symmetrical to the ecological units
• Landscape level REDD may introduce new institutions thereby inducing latent conflicts with the existing authority which could jeopardies the scheme
• Landscape should not only refer to higher scale of resource management but must adequately embrace the diversity and complexity of the actors and their dynamics