The use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: Evidence from community forestry in Nepal

FORPOL-01279; No of Pages 15 Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

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The use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: Evidence from community forestry in Nepal Maja Nastasia Juul Toft ⁎, Yemi Adeyeye, Jens Friis Lund Department of Food and Resource Economics, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Denmark

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 28 February 2014 Received in revised form 18 June 2015 Accepted 30 June 2015 Available online xxxx Keywords: Community forestry Forest inventory Knowledge Decentralization Asia

a b s t r a c t This paper examines the use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to practical forest management in processes of community forestry in Nepal. The paper is based on case studies in four CommunityForestry User Groups (CFUG) in the mid-Hills of Nepal and draws upon semi-structured interviews, participatory rural appraisal exercises and analyses of aerial photographs. First, we find that the operational plans supposed to guide community-level management are based on sub-standard forest inventories, which limits their potential role in practical forest management. Second, we find that community-level managers do not rely on the operational plans in their practical forest management. Finally, we find that community-level forest managers in these four cases have managed to conserve their community forests over time and appear knowledgeable about the developments in the condition of their forests in the sense that their impressions of past and current forest condition are mirrored in what we can observe from analysis of change in forest condition based on aerial photographs. Based on these results we question the usefulness of inventory-based management planning in the context of community forestry. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Approaches to forest management that involve people living in and around forests are widespread. These approaches are legislated and implemented under a number of policy designations, including decentralized forest management, participatory forest management, joint forest management, community-based forest management, indigenous forestry, and social forestry and vary with regard to the degree power sharing with forest-adjacent people. The share of the World's forests managed by participatory approaches has been growing over the past three decades, and today the area of forest land in lower and middle income countries under legal community ownership or control is around 30% (RRI, 2013). While participatory approaches to forest management vary with regard to the extent of power sharing, they invariably involve an inventory-based approach to forest management planning. Thus, the power sharing arrangements between the State, usually represented by forest administrations, and forest-adjacent people rest on the elaboration of a management plan that is based on a structured forest inventory and which sets out the goals and prescriptions

⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (M.N.J. Toft).

for the forest management (Klooster, 2002; FAO, 2004; Larson and Ribot, 2007; Saito-Jensen and Jensen, 2010; Mathews, 2011; Movuh, 2012; Green and Lund, in this issue; Rutt et al., in this issue). The inventory-based approach to forest planning and management has its roots in central Europe in the late eighteenth century and comprises principles and methods aimed at ensuring a permanent forest estate and a sustainable supply of forest products, mainly timber. It assumes that the forest that is planned for is measured and its growth rate modeled to yield predictions about how it responds to management, which would allow forest managers to predict and steer the development of the forest to yield the desired products. In the context of participatory forestry, the application of the inventory-based forest management planning approach has been promoted as a means to ensure the ecological sustainability of the management by conditioning the devolution of power on the elaboration of an inventory-based management plan and adherence to its prescriptions. However, the reliance on inventory-based management planning in participatory forest management approaches has been shown to have a number of more or less unwanted or unintended effects. Concerns have been raised that inventory-based management serves to strengthen the control of forest administrations, rather than facilitating participation by forest-adjacent communities (Ojha, 2002; Hull et al., 2010). This is linked to evidence that a lack of resources to implement inventories and elaborate or update management plans have led to decade long

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.007 1389-9341/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Toft, M.N.J., et al., The use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: Evidence from community forestry in Nepal, Forest Policy and Economics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.007

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M.N.J. Toft et al. / Forest Policy and Economics xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

delays in devolution processes (Scheba and Mustalahti, in this issue) and to large backlogs or expired management plans (Ojha, 2002, 2006; Rutt et al., in this issue). Further, the technical framing of forest management implied in inventory-based planning has been observed to lend itself to elite capture in forest-adjacent communities, as people who are educated or have received training in the management procedures use their superior knowledge to garner authority (Nightingale, 2005; Green and Lund, in this issue). Finally, there are concerns about the quality and relevance of the plans. Mathews (2011) describes how lower level forest officers were compelled to sign off on plans of poor quality as there were no resources to do rigorous forest inventories. Similarly, Rutt et al. (in this issue) found that management plans were flawed due to a lack of rigor in the implementation of forest inventories, which the authors linked to a lack of resources. Thus, it appears that inventory-based management planning in many respects constitutes a burden on processes of participatory forest management. Yet, we know less of the virtues of inventory-based management planning, i.e. whether it serves an important function in supporting forest-adjacent communities in managing their forests. This study seeks to fill this knowledge gap by exploring the role of inventory-based management plans, called operational plans (OP), in forest management by four communities each managing their forest under the community forestry program in Nepal. Specifically, the study sought to answer the following three questions: (Q1) Are the OPs informed by recent and rigorous forest inventories? (Q2) Do community-level managers rely on the OPs in their management? (Q3) Do community-level forest managers appear knowledgeable about the condition of their forest?

Our examination of (Q1) concerns the degree to which OPs are based on updated and situated knowledge, i.e. whether they are based on recent and rigorous forest inventories of the forests in question. As such, the answer to Q1 will be revealing as regards the potential role of the OPs as useful tools in guiding forest management. Our examination of (Q2) concerns the degree to which this potential role is mirrored by actual use of the OPs in the planning and implementation of forest management by community-level forest managers. Through interviews with community-level forest managers we will explore the role of the OPs in practical forest management and decision making. Finally, our examination of Q3 seeks to explore whether community-level forest managers' knowledge of the forest condition – be it based on OPs or not – resonates with analyses of forest condition as represented by aerial photography. The answers to this final question may be indicative of whether the management decisions of community-level forest managers are based on situated and relevant information about the development of the forest in question. Thus, in sum the answers to the three questions will be telling as to the actual importance of the OPs in community-level forest management, whether community-level forest managers – irrespective of their actual use of the OPs – appear to have knowledge about their forest that enables informed management decisions and finally whether some of the reasons for the use (or not) may be found in the OPs themselves. Taken together, it is thus our hope that this study may provide insights that can be valuable to the development of forestry planning approaches that are well suited to participatory forestry processes. The empirical context of our study is the Community Forestry (CF) program in Nepal, which has long been considered a leading example of forest decentralization among developing countries (Agrawal and Ostrom, 2001; Ojha, 2006; Ojha et al., 2009; Hull et al., 2010; Pokharel, 2012). Under CF in Nepal, powers are devolved to Community Forestry User Groups (CFUG) to manage forests in accordance with a constitution and management plan – the latter is known as the OP – and the CFUGs can authorize utilization

of the community forest and collect, retain and redistribute forest revenue from such uses (Lund et al., 2014). While the constitution defines the social arrangements in the CFUG, the OP is based on a forest inventory and specifies objectives for the forest development, activities to be undertaken, and rules regulating forest product utilization (Ojha, 2002; Ojha et al., 2009; Chhetri et al., 2012; Pokharel, 2012). Every five to ten years the OPs must be renewed in order for the CFUGs to sustain their rights over the forests (Hull et al., 2010; Pokharel, 2012; Rutt et al., in this issue). The CFUGs are self-formed associations with a membership consisting of people with an interest in the management and use of the particular forest. CFUGs elect executive committees for the management and administration of the forest. The process of devolving responsibilities and rights to manage forests in Nepal dates back to the 1970s. The current community forestry process was initiated in the early 1990s with legal reforms and a nationwide effort at implementation. However, detailed forest inventories providing a basis for determination of annual allowable harvest level first became a requirement for management planning in 2000, where it was introduced by the Ministry for Forest and Soil Conservation (Ojha, 2002; Hull et al., 2010). The officially stated intention with these requirements is to safeguard forests by regulating extraction so that it does not exceed increment (Ojha, 2002; Rutt et al., in this issue). Our study exemplifies recent developments in the interface between political ecology and science and technology studies (STS). The focus on knowledge claims as part of the negotiation over rural peoples' access to natural resources – in our case by the need for inventory-based management plans – places our study at the heart of traditional political ecological debates (Robbins, 2004). Yet, our interest in discussing claims and their power-effects through examining the character and production of knowledge takes inspiration from STS and responds to recent calls for studies that seek to draw on both literatures to provide new ways of questioning power relations and struggles over resource access by scrutinizing all knowledge claims (in our case among communitylevel managers and forestry technicians) on equal terms (e.g. Forsyth, 2003; Goldman et al., 2011). Our study can be seen as adding to this emerging literature.

1.1. Study area and methods 1.1.1. Study area The study was carried out in four CFUGs in the Tanahun District located in the mid-hills of Western Nepal. With the majority of the population being dependent on agriculture and forest resources for their livelihood sustenance, Tanahun represents a typical forestdependent mid-hill district (Pokharel, 2012; Oli, 2015). With regards to CF, Tanahun is considered a pioneer district, initiating the CF program only a few years after the launch in the mid-1970s (Pokharel, 2012). The four CFUGs were selected among ten CFUGs for which information on development in forest condition over time based on analyses of time series of remote sensing imagery existed (Oli, 2015). These ten CFUGs, in turn, were selected among older and larger (in terms of forest size and CFUG membership) CFUGs with access to markets for forest products (Oli, 2015). All the ten forests managed by the CFUGs feature the common commercial species Sal (Shorea robusta). Thus, in terms of representativeness, these ten CFUGs represent management bodies that we expect to be more knowledgeable, independent, and actively managing and receiving more attention from the district forest office, due to their experience, resources, and accessibility. The four CFUGs for this study were selected among the more actively managing CFUGs to enable an evaluation of actual forest management practices. Some basic characteristics of the four CFUGs, as well as the development in forest cover, are listed in Table 1.

Please cite this article as: Toft, M.N.J., et al., The use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: Evidence from community forestry in Nepal, Forest Policy and Economics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.007

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Table 1 CFUGs investigated. Mature stands with a crown density above 70%. Reference: Oli (2015). Date of

OP validity

Forest

Total

Per annum change of mature stands, crown cover N70%

CFUG

handover

YY/YY–YY/YY

area (ha)

households

1972–1998

1998–2009

Basudev Pahara Bhayarthan Chisapani Saldanda

Apr 1995 Sep 1993 Jun 1996 Sep 1995

09/10–13/14 09/10–18/19 10/11–20/21 08/09–12/13

56.40 30.61 171.29 139.24

147 107 184 236

−3.83 −1.04 0.66 −1.22

0.00 2.03 −0.14 3.03

Basudev Pahara and Bhayarthan CFUG are characterized by relatively small forest areas primarily consisting of pole stage forest. Both have seen an overall decline in crown cover during the period before the use and management rights were handed over in the mid-1990s. Since the date of handover forest regrowth has been observed in the two CFUGs. However, in Basudev Pahara extensive deforestation in the years prior to handover implied that the regrowth in the subsequent decade could not be registered in the remote sensing data, thus the apparent no change development shown in Table 1. Another common feature for the two CFUGs is relatively easy access to the district headquarters; Basudev Pahara being located along the Prithvi Highway and Bhayarthan in the suburbs of the district headquarters. At the opposite end of the scale, in terms of forest size and development, are Chisapani and Saldanda CFUG with relatively large forest areas, primarily consisting of mature stands. Whereas Saldanda, similar to Basudev Pahara and Bhayarthan CFUG, is characterized by a decrease in forest cover before handover, Chisapani is characterized by an increase in the same period, which Oli (2015) attributes to it being relatively inaccessible during this period. Conversely, a negative change is observed in Chisapani in the period since handover owing to the harvesting and sale of a larger number of mature timber trees to generate funds for the community to be connected to the national power grid. Both Chisapani and Saldanda are relatively remotely located. 1.1.2. Methods The investigation in the CFUGs was based on qualitative semistructured interviews and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) exercises. Furthermore, the latest OP for each CFUG was translated and analyzed. 1.2. PRA exercises and aerial photography analysis For the PRA exercises, all former and current members of the executive committees, as well as people with a somewhat advisory relation to the executive committees, were invited for half day sessions in each of the CFUGs. The focusing of these exercises on managers only was justified by the intention of examining the management practices and perceptions or knowledge held of those managing, i.e. we would not expect all CFUG members to be knowledgeable of the forest development nor would we believe that an absence of such knowledge among members would affect forest management practices. The exercises were divided into two parts: one aiming at defining attributes characterizing good forest condition, the other aiming at understanding the perception of development in forest condition among the local forest managers as well as the utilization patterns of the forest resource. The first part of the exercise was important to enable an interpretation of the latter, i.e. to understand what attributes about the forest might have influenced a specific characterization of forest development.

For the first part of the PRA exercise, the attendees were asked to note the attributes characterizing a forest in good, moderate and poor condition, respectively. Some of the resulting attributes for good condition were: well controlled/managed; diverse forest structure; product extraction possible and; presence of wildlife. Moderate condition was characterized by: less control/management; less diverse forest structure and, among other; steepness and rocky soil. Poor condition was characterized by: no control/management; no or dying trees; landslides and; the absence of wildlife. In the second part, the same attendees were asked to divide themselves into two groups; one group drawing the forest condition before the date of handover and the other group drawing the current forest condition. The exercise ended with the two groups discussing and merging their results into agreed upon drawings that illustrated the development in forest condition since the date of handover. The results from these exercises were subsequently compared to the before-mentioned forest-cover change matrices for forest development based on aerial photographs in the periods 1972–1998 (pre-handover) and 1998–2009 (post-handover) available in Oli (2015). This enabled a comparison of the understanding of development in forest condition held by the managers (as expressed in the drawings) to the results of the aerial photography analyses. All CFUGs involved initiated management in the period between 1993 and 1996, justifying the assumption that the 1998 aerial photographs constitute a reasonable indication of forest condition at the time of handover. For the purpose of the comparison, the attributes obtained in the first part of the PRA exercise provided a useful backdrop to understand similarities and differences between the aerial photographs and PRA drawings.

1.3. Semi-structured interviews From the participants in the PRA exercises respondents were selected for semi-structured interviews. The selection was done by asking the CFUG executive members to identify people with knowledge of the issues of relevance for this study. This selection criterion was justified as the focus of this study was to explore knowledge and practices among the people who are involved directly in forest management, as opposed to, for instance, exploring knowledge among a broader segment of CFUG membership. The interviews concerned the content of the OP, CFUG management practices and the interviewee's perceptions of the forest inventory work and the relevance of the OP to CFUG management. All these interviews were done by the first author, with the aid of an interpreter with a background in forestry. Three to four days were spent in each of the four CFUGs. Semi-structured interviews were also performed with forest technicians, Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal (FECOFUN) representatives and non-governmental organization (NGO) representatives. Interviewees were asked about their perception of the relevance of forest inventories in CF processes, the knowledge and ability of CFUG members to manage forests, and issues with the existing system of inventory-based management planning. Depending on the

Please cite this article as: Toft, M.N.J., et al., The use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: Evidence from community forestry in Nepal, Forest Policy and Economics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.007

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Fig. 1. Aerial photography analysis and participatory maps of Saldanda CF representing forest condition at the time when the forest was handed over to the CFUG in 1995 and in 2013. The lower map on the left hand side shows a change matrix for the period 1998–2009 based on the aerial photography analysis. Reference: Oli, 2015.

preferences of the informant, interviews were conducted in Nepali or English. In total 40 semi-structured interviews were conducted; 30 interviews in the CFUGs and 10 interviews with other stakeholders. All interviews were voice recorded and subsequently transcribed by the interpreter resulting in 190 pages of transcripts. These were then coded and analyzed

by the first author using NVivo (2012). For the analysis, an interpretative approach was taken in the sense that the interview statements were interpreted in light of the first author's knowledge of the context of the interview, the interviewee, and information about the topic of the interview gathered during the field study. As an initial analytical step, a field report of around 40 pages was written up by

Please cite this article as: Toft, M.N.J., et al., The use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: Evidence from community forestry in Nepal, Forest Policy and Economics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.007

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the first author with extensive interview quotes and interpretation of these in light of the other interviews and material reviewed. This then formed the basis for the selection of quotes and their interpretation as presented in this article. 2. Results 2.1. Are the OPs informed by recent and rigorous forest inventories? The OPs in CF in Nepal are based on forest inventories that supposedly follow standard protocols and that are usually conducted by one to two forest technicians from the district forest office with the help of a few CFUG members, typically CFUG executive committee members. As to the extent and rigor of the forest inventories, our interviews indicated a great deal of variation. In Bhayarthan, for instance, some of the people who had been or were currently in CFUG leadership positions believed that the latest renewal of the OP had been done without an inventory, whereas others were in doubt. The below interview passage from one of the interviews illustrates this as well as the process of interviewing to gain certainty that interviewer and interviewee were, indeed, talking about the same issue: R: “No I don't know and it was not done. No one knows about the plots. What to do with 100 m2?” I: to count the number of trees within the plot] R: “Not done. Not in any of the CFs of this area. Is it about SAMPLE PLOT?” [Interviewer: Yes] “No, not done anything for it here (sic)”. In the other three CFUGs, interviewees related that forest inventories had been done at one or more points in the history of the community forestry process. Yet, in general, the past and current CFUG leaders interviewed were often in doubt about what had happened. To enable an understanding of the rigor of the inventories we, among other, asked interviewees about the number and distribution in forest blocks of the sample plots for the inventory. Community forests in Nepal are divided into forest blocks, and all four forests in our study were divided into five blocks; probably with the purpose of creating a system that fits the validity period of the OPs, which is either five or ten years. The block division is ostensibly also based on forest condition and used for stratified sampling in the forest inventories (DOF, 2000). Interviews in Saldanda and Basudev Pahara indicated that only a subset of the blocks had been covered during the inventories. The interview excerpt below from an interview with a former Basudev Pahara CFUG executive committee member illustrates this: I: While taking the plots, were the plots taken to cover the whole forest or what? R: It was taken as to cover the whole forest within 2 blocks. I: Are those blocks 1 and 2? R: No, they were 2 and 4. I: Why 2 and 4? R: Just for sampling as the ranger said and we did so. I: Do 2 and 4 look as the whole forest? R: Yes As regards the number of plots measured, interviewees from Chisapani and Bhayarthan stated that two to four plots were measured in each of the blocks, whereas a former committee member from Saldanda remembered that only three plots were measured in an inventory for the renewal of the OP: R: After 5 years during renewal, they divided the blocks as 1,2,3,4 and 5 and they took measurements but what value I don't know. I: How many plots did they take in total? R: That time they took only 3 plots; one in Block 1, second in

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block 2 and in block 3 it was relayed to next group to complete the work. During interviews, DFO and NGO representatives supported the notion that forest inventories are often sub-standard due to shortcuts being taken in their implementation. For instance, when replying to the question of whether inventories usually cover the entire forest, a government official indicated that forest technicians sometimes fail to randomize the location of sample plots: “In some [they] select subjectively also, selective sampling; they [forest technicians] know what they are doing […] the sample plots should represent all the forest. They know, if we take these types of sample plots it can represent the whole forest […] they know the forest (sic)”. This quote indicates that forest technicians' practices defy the principle of randomization, which underlies their inventory-based approach to forest inventory and the generation of descriptive statistics for basal area, wood volume, and growth, etc., yet indicates that the interviewee has confidence in the ability of technicians' to purposively select plots that will ensure a representative picture of the entire forest. The FECOFUN representatives interviewed were of the impression that sometimes OPs are not based on an inventory of the forest in question, i.e. supporting the impression from our interviews in Bhayarthan, and that OPs may sometimes be similar across CFUGs when the respective forests are similar and only used for subsistence. Thus, from our interviews in the four study CFUGs and with representatives of the forest department and FECOFUN, it appears that the forest inventories underlying the OPs in some areas of community forestry may be of questionable quality and relevance, in the sense that they may not reflect the actual condition of the specific forest. The notions that inventories are sometimes not done or updated for a specific community forest and that inventories, when done, are often substandard and/or done in ways that defy their assumptions (e.g. randomization) imply that the potential and actual role of inventory-based forest management plans (OPs) in community forestry in Nepal, as exemplified by these four CFs, and the related findings by Rutt et al. (in this issue) and Ojha (2002), appear limited. In effect, the absence of adherence to the principles of inventory-based forest management planning in the practice of forest technicians imply that this practice comes to resemble the placebased and intuitive approaches to forest planning and management practiced by community-level managers, as we shall see. 2.2. Do community-level managers rely on the OPs in their management? Tending operations, as prescribed in the OPs, were performed by the CFUGs and CFUG members stated to comply with the overall harvestable levels. That being said, CFUG members also displayed substantial confidence and autonomy in the decision-making: “Besides OP what matters is users' decision. When OP was made it had only predicted the present condition, so the actual present condition and the immediately required operations can only be decided by users (sic)”. This quote points to the Achilles heel of the OPs – that they are static documents that may be rendered irrelevant by changes in the forest condition that were not known when they were prepared. The quote also indicates a high level of understanding of the assumptions underlying the OP. All CFUG executive committees operated with an overall level for the entire forest rather than the allowable harvest volumes set out for each block in the OPs. From the interviews it was indicated that the level of this allowable harvest level in some cases is influenced by the demand

Please cite this article as: Toft, M.N.J., et al., The use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: Evidence from community forestry in Nepal, Forest Policy and Economics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.007

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of the CFUG members as much as by an inventory and assumptions about the growth rate of the forest, as specified in the OP. A CFUG respondent stated: “The provision for the allowable harvest level is there in OP, and we committee, too decide on this matter (sic)”. That CFUG members actually have a say regarding the allowable harvest level, is supported by a NGO representative: “Sometimes the attitude of the technicians, when they [CFUGs] want to extract more products, then […] the forester, they can put more and more quantities in the OP and sometimes they [CFUGs] have very good stocks in the forest but the DFO staff put less [the sustainable cut] (sic)”. In general, accessibility and traditional utilization systems were found to be important factors in selecting the sites for extraction. In practice, sub-committees representing different ‘toles’, or hamlets, decide on the trees to harvest within their respective forest areas. As a result of this tole-wise management system, not all parts of the forest may have users. This was the case of Basudev Pahara where the Northern part of the forest did not have any users assigned: “Here we have the sub-committee according to accessibility. So, if this sub-committee cannot provide then another sub-committee is referred for the wood. […] The Northern part of this forest has no users […] If a person from East wants a tree and not available in East can refer to the West or others, which is directed by the secretary (sic)”. Also, the on-site decisions on product extraction do not always coincide with the prescriptions in the OP or with the recommendations given by the forest technicians. Rather, decisions on product extractions seem, to a high degree, to be dependent on the members' own experiences, needs and beliefs. A CFUG respondent noted: “If there are two good trees close to each other, we leave them untouched. Ranger would have said to cut one of them but we don't. They [rangers] require 2 meter separation but sometimes we allow 1 meter too. Afterwards the one that grows well is kept and the other is removed (sic)”. This quote indicates that CFUG executive committee members feel able and confident in making autonomous decisions within certain bounds. An example of the limits to this autonomy is that the CFUGs overall appear to respect the prohibition of the cutting of green trees, which is highlighted in the OPs. Thus, primarily old and dying trees are marked for harvesting – in accordance to the OP specification that CFUGs are only allowed to cut dead, dying, diseased and deformed trees. When opening tender for sale of timber (green trees), the CFUGs rely on the District Forest Office for authorization even if the Executive Committees receive the support of the General Assemblies for a sale. When selecting trees for harvesting, tree-to-tree distance, species and size were important criteria, although the majority of the CFUG members had difficulties in expressing the knowledge and underlying principles used in the practical selection. To the question of how harvestable trees are selected, a CFUG executive committee member replied: “By visual estimation we decide on which tree to cut depending upon the location (sic)”. A member from one of the other CFUGs gave a similar statement when asked how areas for management and trees for harvest were selected: “Only by our eyes, trees in open areas are retained and just the dense areas are managed” [interviewer: how do you differentiate between

pole and trees?] “Just using our visual judgment, trees are considered fit to cut when they reach the required size […] (sic)”. We also sought to understand the CFUG members' impression of the purpose and procedures of the forest inventory. Our interviews regarding the inventory process clearly showed that the planning and implementation of the inventory is led by the forest technicians, whereas the participating CFUG members primarily act as guides and practical helpers. A respondent from Bhayarthan CFUG stated: “That one is mainly done by rangers, not us. What I know is that if the trees are counted in a circular plot, we can obtain the total of the forest […] It was done so to know the growing stock (sic)”. Despite having less detailed knowledge about the content of the OPs and expressing distance from the process of forest inventory, all CFUG members interviewed were satisfied with the current format of the plans and seemed to perceive the OPs as products developed by themselves, through internal discussions and discussions with the DFO staff. Also, a strong consensus existed among CFUG members that the OPs are needed in their management. Even though the members feel confident about their knowledge and ability to manage the forests, the necessity of guidelines and a basis for decision making was emphasized. An executive committee member states: “Without OP there's no agenda so working would be difficult. Operational Plan is a must […] Even if I have the knowledge, it requires basis to operate. OP is the base guideline which is always needed (sic)”. However, the primary function of the OPs seemed to be one of social control to regulate the activities of the general users. A former executive committee member pointed out: “A restricting factor must be present otherwise carelessness occurs. Even we have now [laughing], the villagers don't understand us; they repeat the same errors (sic)”. By virtue of the written format, and possibly the technical format, the OPs are a useful resource for the legitimization of decisions taken by the executive committees. A former executive committee member explained this: “It is important and it is needed. A written rule must be there at least to show the users for their convenience. No one BELIEVES a person who says ‘I know the whole law,’ ISN'T IT (sic)?” As should be clear from the preceding paragraphs, the answer to this our second research question crucially depends on what specific facets of management we are talking about. In terms of practical forest management – steering forest condition in a desirable direction while seeking to satisfy members' demand for forest products – the OPs appear to play little, if any, role at all. Yet, in terms of the political aspects of management – garnering legitimacy around forest management decisions – the OPs are important to the CFUG executive committees. 2.3. Do community-level forest managers appear knowledgeable about the condition of their forest? We sought an understanding of past and present CFUG managers' impressions of the development in forest condition since CFUG establishment by comparing the CFUG managers' drawings of past and present forest condition with the developments in forest cover as evident from the forest cover change matrices based on aerial photographs. As an overall impression from the four case study CFUGs, the comparison indicates that the CFUG managers'

Please cite this article as: Toft, M.N.J., et al., The use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: Evidence from community forestry in Nepal, Forest Policy and Economics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.007

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impressions of past and current forest condition are mirrored in what we can see from the analysis based on aerial photographs. Yet, this overall picture glosses over many differences and discrepancies that, among others, are rooted in the differences between what can be seen from the widely differing perspectives of aerial photographs and everyday use on the ground, but also in differences in scale of observation, and derived from what is emphasized as good, moderate and poor forest condition by managers. Here we will present a detailed analysis of the comparison for Saldanda CF as an example. Similar results from the three other forests can be found in Appendix A. According to the CFUG members, Saldanda CF has improved since it was handed over to them in 1995. Back then, the forest could roughly be divided into three parts: a Southern (and low altitude) part characterized as in moderate condition due to a relatively high use pressure from the nearby villages; a central part consisting of middle aged trees considered as forest in good condition, and a Northern (higher altitude) and more degraded part on rocky soil characterized as in poor condition. The current condition of the forest is considered good in all but the South-Eastern and North-Western corners, i.e. an overall improvement in most areas of the forest is perceived by CFUG managers (Fig. 1). Comparing the drawings with the maps based on aerial photography analysis from 1998 to 2009 (Fig. 1) reveals several similarities. The maps show that the majority of the forest consists of mature and pole size trees, and that large parts of the forest has developed from younger, pole-stage forest into mature trees with a crown cover N70%, i.e. a dense forest. This indicates that the overall woody biomass level of the forest has increased, and that the forest has been conserved, i.e. the harvesting of trees has been kept in check. Furthermore, the deterioration in the North-Western corner reflected in the CFUG managers' maps is mirrored by an increase in the area with low crown coverage – i.e. a lower tree density – in this part of the forest. On the other hand, discrepancies are also found: a relatively large area North and East of the settlements inside the forest is by the CFUG members characterized as being in poor condition currently even though the aerial photography analysis from 2009 shows an area with mature trees and high crown coverage. Similarly the South-Western corner of the forest is by the CFUG members perceived as being in moderate condition, while the aerial photography analysis indicates a high crown cover of mature trees. These differences may be partly explained by the CFUG managers' definition of good forest condition. With regard to the North-Eastern corner the CFUG members explained how this forest area is characterized by a steep and rocky terrain relatively far away from the villages at the Southern forest border. The inaccessibility in terms of terrain and distance appeared to influence their perception of forest condition. Furthermore, absence of desirable species in a certain area also appeared to affect how the CFUG members perceive the forest condition. This is illustrated by the inconsistency found in the South-Western corner of Saldanda CF, where the CFUG members stated that the absence of the timber species Sal (S. robusta) was the reason for this part of the forest being considered as being in only moderate condition. 3. Discussion Overall, our findings can be summarized as follows. Our findings on the OPs indicate that they are not based on situated knowledge of the forest in question, i.e. a rigorous forest inventory, which would enable their use for practical forest management, at least in our cases. Furthermore, our interviews with NGO and forest administration representatives and other studies (Rutt et al., in this issue; FAO, 2004; Ojha, 2002) indicate that this may be a more general issue and one that has become a liability to the forest administration in Nepal (Chhetri et al., 2012). Our findings on the reliance of CFUG

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managers on the OPs in their management indicate that the plans are of less, if any, importance in relation to guide practical forest management operations, whereas they appear important as instruments by which the managers can garner legitimacy around forest management decisions. Finally, our findings from the comparison of past and present CFUG managers' perceptions of the development in forest condition over time with analysis of change in forest condition based on aerial photography analysis broadly indicates that managers are very well aware of the overall changes in their forests, i.e. their management appears to be based on relevant and situated knowledge. Our results on the use and usefulness of the OPs resonate with a growing body of studies in Nepal and elsewhere that question inventory-based management planning in the context of participatory forestry (Malla et al., 2002; FAO, 2004; Green and Lund, in this issue; Scheba and Mustalahti, in this issue; Mathews, 2011; Movuh, 2012). In the context of Nepal, lack of human and financial resources in the forest bureaucracy is often brought forward as the underlying cause of delays in OP renewal and sub-standard implementation of inventory procedures (Ojha, 2002; FECOFUN, 2013a). Yet, rather than asking whether additional resources could remedy the situation, it might be relevant also to question the need for detailed forest inventories in CF. Forest inventories are tools for monitoring forests and to enable predictions about growth, yield and factors affecting the forest resource, which provide a basis for managers to guide forest development. However, the usefulness of the inventory-based information for decision making appears questionable as most mid-Hill CFUGs primarily utilize the forests for various NTFPs for subsistence needs (see for instance Lund et al., 2014), while the inventories do not target NTFP production (Ojha, 2002). Further, for inventories to function as management tools, reliable and periodically updated data is required (Husch et al., 2003). Yet, as this study and others have shown, the reliability of the information resulting from the current inventory practices is questionable. Further, the financial and logistical challenges involved in ensuring periodical updates of the OPs in Nepalese community forestry appears a challenge as indicated by the slowing process of establishing new CFs and the long backlogs of OPs that are awaiting renewal (Springate-Baginski et al., 2003; Rutt et al., in this issue). Thus, we would argue, that there appears to be a case for careful rethinking of the intensity and form of management planning needed for CF in the mid-Hills of Nepal where the overall value of the resource and its uses appears to simply not justify the current approach to inventory-based management planning. In considering the possibility of community forestry in the absence of inventory-based management planning, an important question is whether CFUG managers more generally would be able to carry out forest management in the absence of forest inventories and the resulting technical parts of the OPs. In our case, the comparison of CFUG executive committee members' impressions of change in forest condition over time with analysis of aerial photographs indicated that the community level managers have a good overview of past and present condition of their forests. This impression was corroborated by interviews in which the managers expressed confidence in their ability to manage, and District Forest Officers and NGO and FECOFUN representatives also acknowledge that the CFUGs do possess a sound knowledge on forestry (FECOFUN, 2013a, 2013b; CARE, 2013). Furthermore, in this case, the practiced management seems to have led to improved conservation status of the forests. Analysis of time-series of photo generated maps from 1972, 1998 and 2009 for these four CFs indicate an overall improvement in crown cover since the management was handed over to the CFUGs in the mid/late 1990s (Oli, 2015). This is in line with the overwhelming body of empirical evidence indicating that CFUGs in Nepal promote forest conservation (e.g. Nagendra et al., 2008; Ojha et al., 2009; Meilby et al., 2014). Thus, it appears that CFUG managers, despite being

Please cite this article as: Toft, M.N.J., et al., The use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: Evidence from community forestry in Nepal, Forest Policy and Economics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.007

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saddled with less useful OPs and without relying on these in their management, are generally capable of and interested in sustaining their community forests. In terms of whether our results regarding the knowledge and capability of CFUG managers are likely to hold in the general context of community forestry in Nepal, we acknowledge that we have focused on more experienced and active CFUGs, but find comfort that our results resonate with the findings of Rutt et al. (in this issue). Furthermore, most community forests in Nepal are much smaller than our case study forests which, we believe, is likely to facilitate a good overview of forest condition in the absence of structured forest inventories. One thing is planning as outcome, another is planning as process. In this study we have mainly focused on the embodiment of the planning process as outcome, i.e. the OP document. This document, as we have seen, does not constitute a useful representation of the forest it supposedly portrays. Yet, there is a possibility that CFUG managers' engagement with forestry professionals and participation in inventory exercises constitute an important learning process without which CFUG managers would be less well informed about their forests. We do have a bit of evidence to bring to bear on this hypothesis, as our interviews with CFUG managers about their involvement in the inventory processes generally revealed a low level of meaningful involvement in the sense of knowledge transfer. Generally, CFUG managers act in the role of assistants and guides to the forestry officers, carrying measurement tapes and showing the boundaries of the forests, rather than being let in on the underlying principles and rationales of the inventory exercise. Thus, based on this evidence there is little support for the hypothesis that the management planning exercise is important as a process of knowledge sharing and learning. Although the OPs and principles of management planning are not applied in the actual management by the CFUGs they seem important in legitimizing the decisions made by the executive committees. This was also found by Nightingale (2005) and Chhetri et al. (2012) in similar contexts of community forestry in Nepal. This legitimizing function of the OPs may assist CFUG managers in ensuring compliance to the rules and regulations of the CFUGs, created under democratic processes, but may also have negative social and democratic consequences if powerful members in the executive committees manipulate decisions in their own favor by undermining deliberative verbal processes of building consensus (Nightingale, 2005; Dahal and Chapagain, 2008). 4. Conclusion In this study, we have examined the use and usefulness of inventory-based management plans, so-called OPs, to communitylevel forest managers in the context of Nepal's Community Forestry program. Specifically our study sought to answer three questions: (1) whether the OPs are informed by recent and rigorous forest inventories, (2) to what degree the community-level managers rely on the OPs in their management and (3) whether the communitylevel forest managers appear knowledgeable about the condition of their forest. Based on our case studies in four Community Forestry User Groups in the mid-Hills of Nepal we found that inventories are often substandard and/or done in ways that defy their assumptions. Further, we found that the OPs play little, if any, role in the practical forest management. However, the OPs appear important to the CFUG executive committees as a source of legitimacy around forest management decisions. Finally, we found that CFUG managers' impressions of past and current forest condition are mirrored in what we could observe from analysis of change in forest condition based on aerial photographs. Thus, the management decisions of community-level forest managers appear to be based on situated and relevant information about the development of the forest in question.

Our results on the use and usefulness of the OPs resonate with a growing body of recent studies in Nepal and elsewhere that question inventory-based management planning in the context of participatory forestry. We believe that this emerging body of literature constitutes an argument for a re-thinking of the role of inventorybased management planning in community forestry in Nepal and elsewhere. Depending on the value and ecological characteristics of the forest and the goals of forest management, the intensity and form of planning should be considered with respect to the limited resources available. Acknowledgments We are grateful to Danida Fellowship Centre for their economic support. Thanks to the CFUGs and to people in Nepal who were instrumental in seeing this research through, in particular Mukti Subedi and Samjhana Wagle. Also, we are grateful for the kind support of Tanahun District Forest Office and FECOFUN. Thanks to Bishwa Nath Oli and Thorsten Treue for sharing maps. The involvement of Jens Friis Lund in this work was funded partly by the research grant 13-05KU from the Consultative Research Committee for Development Research under the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Appendix A To understand past and present CFUG managers' impressions of the development in forest condition since the handover of the forests to community management, we compare their drawings of past and present forest condition with the developments in forest cover as evident from the forest cover change matrices based on aerial photographs. In this appendix we present a detailed analysis of the comparison for Basudev Pahara CFUG, Bhayarthan CFUG and Chisapani CFUG. A.1. Basudev Pahara According to the CFUG members, the forest of Basudev Pahara could before the time of handover in 1995 roughly be divided into three parts with regards to condition: an upper, a middle and a lower part characterized as being in good, moderate and poor condition with the upper part located furthest away from the village and in a higher altitude relative to the lower part. Since handover the forest is perceived to have developed towards larger areas with more dense forest and more mature trees. The forest can still be divided into the three parts, only now the size of the areas with forest in good and moderate condition have increased, while the area with forest in poor condition has decreased (Fig. 2). This overall impression from the maps produced by the CFUG members is reflected in the aerial photography analysis based on photographs from 1998 to 2009 (Fig. 3). As reported by the CFUG members the overall condition of the forest is shown to have improved since the date of handover, with the areas of highest percentage forest cover being located furthest away, in terms of distance and accessibility, from the village at the Southern border. In particular the Northern part of the forest, which had no users according to the CFUG members, has improved in the sense of now containing pole and small size timber trees with crown coverage of 40–70 percentages (Fig. 3). However, with regards to the development of areas in poor forest condition, a discrepancy is observed: According to the aerial photography analysis the total area containing shrubland is roughly the same in 1998 and in 2009, only now the location of these areas have changed to from a belt along the Southern forest border. Taking into consideration the differences in the definitions of good forest, an explanation could be that the lower part of the forest has actually improved with regards to its utility for

Please cite this article as: Toft, M.N.J., et al., The use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: Evidence from community forestry in Nepal, Forest Policy and Economics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.007

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Fig. 2. Participatory maps of Basudev Pahara CF representing forest condition at the time when the forest was handed over to the CFUG in 1995 and in 2013.

the users even though the scientific categorization shows something else. A.2. Bhayarthan According to the CFUG members, the forest of Bhayarthan had no mature stands at the time of handover in 1993 (Fig. 4). Despite the reported absence of mature trees, the majority of the forest was, due to the presence of good seedlings, perceived to contain good condition forest. Only the most Southern part of the forest, closest to the village and the road, was reported to contain degraded land with no or few trees. As for the development of the forest since the date of handover, the overall condition had according to the CFUG members improved. At the time of the exercise the Southern part was, due to the absence of the tree species Sal (S. robusta), reported to be in poor to moderate forest condition. The Northern part and a significant part of the South-Western corner were

reported as being in good condition containing pole stage trees. To the perception of the CFUG members still no mature stands were present in Bhayarthan CF. Consistent with the aerial photography analysis (Fig. 5) the members of Bhayarthan CFUG reported the majority of the forest to consist of pole stage forest with the Southern part being where the most degraded areas can be found. Furthermore, the areas in poor and moderate condition located in the belt running from the South-Western to the North-Western part of the forest, as reported by the CFUG, appears consistent with the deterioration along the stream as indicated by the aerial photography analysis. However, contrary to the statement given by the CFUG members, the Northern part of the forest appeared to consist of mature trees in 1998, and in 2009 a significant section of the Southern part was categorized as mature forest. A possible explanation for this difference between CFUG member perceptions and the aerial photography analysis could be that deterioration took place in the period

Please cite this article as: Toft, M.N.J., et al., The use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: Evidence from community forestry in Nepal, Forest Policy and Economics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.007

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Fig. 3. Aerial photography analysis of Basudev Pahara CF showing the forest condition in 1998 and 2009, representing the condition at the time when the forest was handed over to the CFUG and the present condition. The lower map shows a change matrix for the period 1998–2009 based on the aerial photography analysis. Reference: Oli, 2015.

Please cite this article as: Toft, M.N.J., et al., The use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: Evidence from community forestry in Nepal, Forest Policy and Economics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.007

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Fig. 4. Participatory maps of Bhayarthan CF representing forest condition at the time when the forest was handed over to the CFUG in 1993 and in 2013.

between 2009, the year where the aerial photographs were produced, and 2013 where the exercise was conducted. That the CFUG members report an absence of mature stands at the time of handover is more difficult to explain. Yet, it could be interpreted as no mature stands of desired species. A.3. Chisapani The forest of Chisapani has according to the CFUG members generally improved since the date of handover in 1996 (Fig. 6). The part of the forest closest to the village visited (North-Eastern corner) and the areas along the forest boundary are said to be in poor or moderate condition, while the areas farthest away, in the middle part of the forest, are said to be in good condition. Despite the differences between the appearances of the maps, the main trends seem to be reflected in all of them and in particular in trend map drawn up by the CFUG members. In

this, degradation appears primarily near villages and along trails and streams running through the forest. The reported negative changes in the Northern part of the forest, near the village visited, and along roads and streams are consistent with the development shown by the aerial photography analysis (Fig. 7). Due to differences between the appearances of the three drawings, it is difficult to interpret the perceived forest development in more detail. At first glance, it seems that the lower part of the forest is perceived as the area with best forest condition by the CFUG members, while the areas with the highest percentage crown cover, according to the aerial photography analysis, are located in a horizontal belt in the middle part of the forest. Yet, looking at the placement of the Southern village in the drawings and the reported nearby forest condition, this discrepancy may be explained by dimension differences between the CFUG created drawings and the aerial photography analysis.

Please cite this article as: Toft, M.N.J., et al., The use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: Evidence from community forestry in Nepal, Forest Policy and Economics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.007

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Fig. 5. Aerial photography analysis of Bhayarthan CF showing the forest condition in 1998 and 2009, representing the condition at the time when the forest was handed over to the CFUG and the present condition. The lower map shows a change matrix for the period 1998–2009 based on the aerial photography analysis. Reference: Oli, 2015.

Please cite this article as: Toft, M.N.J., et al., The use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: Evidence from community forestry in Nepal, Forest Policy and Economics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.007

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Fig. 6. Participatory maps of Chisapani CF representing forest condition at the time when the forest was handed over to the CFUG in 1996 and in 2013.

Please cite this article as: Toft, M.N.J., et al., The use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: Evidence from community forestry in Nepal, Forest Policy and Economics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.007

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Fig. 7. Aerial photography analysis of Chisapani CF showing the forest condition in 1998 and 2009, representing the condition at the time when the forest was handed over to the CFUG and the present condition. The lower map shows a change matrix for the period 1998–2009 based on the aerial photography analysis. Reference: Oli, 2015.

Please cite this article as: Toft, M.N.J., et al., The use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: Evidence from community forestry in Nepal, Forest Policy and Economics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.007

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