Climate Change and Community Forestry in Nepal: Local People’s Perception

Laxmi Timilsina-Parajuli^1, , Yajna Timilsina² and Rajan Parajuli³

¹Southern University and A&M College, Baton Rouge, LA

²Tribhuvan University, Institute of Forestry Pokhara Campus, Hariyokharka, Pokhara, Nepal

³Louisiana State University Agricultural Center, Baton Rouge, LA

Cite this paper:
Laxmi Timilsina-Parajuli, Yajna Timilsina and Rajan Parajuli. Climate Change and Community Forestry in Nepal: Local People’s Perception. American Journal of Environmental Protection. 2014; 2(1):1-6. doi: 10.12691/env-2-1-1

Abstract

Climate change is regarded as one of the most fundamental threats to sustainable livelihood and global development. There is growing a global concern in linking community-managed forests as potential climate change mitigation projects. This study was conducted to explore the local people’s perception on climate change and the role of community forestry (CF) to combat climate change impacts. Two active community forest user groups (CFUGs) from Kaski and Syangja Districts in Nepal were selected as study sites, and various participatory tools were applied to collect primary data. Although most of the respondents were unaware about the words “Climate Change” in study sites, they were quite familiar with the irregularities in rainfall season and other weather extremities. 60% of the respondents had the idea that, due to increase in precipitation, there is a frequent occurrence of erosion, floods and landslide. Around 85% of the people agreed that community forests help in stabilizing soil, reducing the natural hazards like erosion, landslide. Biogas as an alternative source of cooking energy, and changes in crops and their varieties are the common adaptation measures that local people start practicing in both CFUGs in Nepal.

Keywords:
climate change community forestry global warming adaptation Nepal

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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