You don't need to be a genius to figure out that Nepal's democracy is having a difficult adolescence. We can't really blame the government because we haven't had a government for a while. A festering labour dispute in the hotel industry that could be easily resolved is threatening the national economy. A Maoist insurgency that feeds on decades of neglect and apathy by successive rulers endangers democracy and the constitutional monarchy. Parliament, which should be passing bills, has been paralysed for three weeks.
It is difficult to find things that are going right. But one of the most visible success stories of the past ten years has been the spread of community forests throughout the midhills of Nepal. It is success on such a grand scale that the increase in the chlorophyll content of the vegetation is now visible from outer space. Comparing Landsat images of Nepal taken 15 years ago with those taken in 2000 show new red splotches-indicating greater canopy cover. There is as much as 15 percent more forest today than there was in 1978. At that time, for instance, only 10 percent of Kabhre Palanchok District east of Kathmandu was forest. By 1998 this had gone up to 35 percent. (High mountain forests and tarai forests are not doing as well, and show declines.)
Kabhre and Sindhupalchok are districts that pioneered community forestry and showed us all what could be achieved through local motivation, devolved decision-making, and transferring ownership and control of natural resources to the village level through true decentralisation and grassroots democracy. Replicated throughout the midhills, Nepal's community forestry programme today covers more than half the nation's forests and has become a showcase for neighbouring South Asian countries. If there is one group of unsung heroes that deserve the next Right Livelihood Award, it will be the thousands of village chairmen, forestry user groups and women's organisations that manage and protect woods across the land.
This national achievement is now threatened by a proposed amendment to the Forest Act 1997 that seeks to undo the 1993 Community Forestry law that made much of this success possible. Once more, our rulers have shown that they cannot see the forest for the trees. Once more they are ruining in one fell swoop what has been achieved by decades of hard work and commitment by villagers all over Nepal. Once more corrupt national level politicians with a bureaucracy in cahoots is equating forest with timber, and nothing else. And for the first time, community forest groups, grassroots conservationists, and villagers from all over Nepal under the Federation of Community Users, Nepal (FECOFUN) brought their protest to the capital. Their message: leave us and our forests alone.
Timber has always been the resource of last resort that Nepal's rulers have traditionally sold for power or money. Fortunes were made from clearing the hardwood forests of the tarai in the 1960s for resettlement or development. The only reason logging has tapered off in the tarai today is because there is nothing left to cut. So, our mandarins (the word comes from the Sanskrit "mantri") have pounced on young forests nurtured by communities across Nepal. Villagers had been using money from their managed forests for development activities like drinking water, repairs to local schools and setting up health camps. The amendment bans further tree felling and other activities.
The lesson from Nepal's success story with community-managed forests was this: if villagers are assured a long-term stake in healthy forests, they will protect them. The amendment to the bill will take away that assurance. Maybe it is better parliament is paralysed-at least the amendment to the Forest Act 1997 will not be passed.
