This chapter describes the people and forests of rural Nepal. The chapter discusses the importance of forests in people's livelihoods, and the emergence of leasehold and community forestry in the region.

This chapter discusses the first leasehold forestry project in Nepal. The government launched the Hills Leasehold Forestry and Forage Development Project (HLFFDP), which was financed by an IFAD loan, as well as a grant from the Royal Netherlands Government for the Technical Assistance component...

This chapter discusses the second leasehold forestry project, Leasehold Forestry and Livestock Programme (LFLP), in Nepal. To help Nepal implement the leasehold forestry approach as a national programme, IFAD designed the LFLP in 2005, upscaling the previous projects at a national scale. Once...

This chapter discusses the impacts of leasehold forestry in Nepal in terms of the conditions of the forests as well as the lives and livelihoods of the poorest segments of society that use them. Existing leasehold forestry is covered by the Leasehold Forestry Policy 2002 and Forest Act 1993. Other...

Leasehold forestry is being implemented within the national framework and the laws and policies which influenced forestry for the past 50 years in Nepal. Moreover, the leasehold forestry concept and approach are being incorporated into other initiatives. The Swiss Development Cooperation worked...

This chapter explores the issues of sustainability and of the integration of community and leasehold forestry. What needs to happen and how? Who needs to make it happen and how? And, most importantly, can it happen? The sections presented in this chapter are adaptations of 'thought pieces' that...

This concluding chapter describes more than 20 years of history of leasehold forestry: how it evolved from an initial government recognition of the interrelated problem of poverty among the poorest forest users and severely degraded forest lands into a programme that expanded from few communities...