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