GoLFor-DEEPN: Local Forest Governance
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Development, Environment and Political Economy in Nepal
The GoLFor-DEEPN* project aims to assess the effects of the decentralisation of forest management from the Forest Department to the local level in Nepal on three points: (1) forest cover, (2) collective action within villages and (3) the functioning of the local political system. After decades of deforestation for farming and firewood, forest cover has improved slightly over the last 20 years. No large-scale study has analysed the precise causes, let alone the consequences.
François Libois, from the Paris School of Economics, coordinated the interdisciplinary GoLFor-DEEPN project, a research programme carried out in collaboration with the CNRS, and based on three axes: human geography led by Olivia Aubriot (CNRS, CESAH), remote sensing led by Nicolas Delbart (U Paris- Cité) and economics led by François Libois (INRAE, PSE). This project was allocated €189k by the ANR, and in the initial period, 2018-2021, €50k by UK AID as part of the ‘Economic Development and Institutions’ programme.
The aim was to quantify the contribution made by the groups to stabilising Nepal’s forest cover, to highlight the underlying mechanisms and to discuss the expected distributional effects in terms of living standards in the villages and local authorities. The GoLFor-DEEPN project is structured around five testable hypotheses:
a) Does giving forest management back to its users increase forest cover?
b) Does the creation of groups have negative effects on adjacent areas? Does it increase the likelihood of the emergence of collective action in neighbouring forests and villages?
c) Do the restrictions on use imposed by user groups increase the adoption of alternative energies and new technologies among villagers living in the vicinity of areas newly managed at local level?
d) Is the type of public goods provided a function of inequalities within groups and villages?
e) Can local management of a resource, in a system where the executive committee is elected, be seen as a form of proto-democracy that helps to select leaders in higher-level elections?
The initial results show that community forestry has indeed contributed to the afforestation of high-altitude areas of Nepal and discuss the mechanisms behind their action: closing forests to grazing, planting but also, and above all, easier access to wood substitutes as energy for cooking.
In addition to these scientific results, extensive data collection has been carried out on more than 3,000 forest user groups, providing detailed, digitised mapping that did not previously exist.
To find out more: the Paris School of Economics Policy Brief, in partnership with INRAE
