Description
In the middle hill region of west central Nepal in 1977, a quarter of a 113 km2 watershed experienced erosion rates exceeding 30 Mt/ha/yr due to high rainfall intensities, unstable soils, steep slopes and severe overgrazing. This increasing land degradation coupled with indiscriminate forest harvesting threatened the survival of forests and viable pasture lands. However, an innovative national government policy of handing over forest management to local people was put in place over the next three decades, resulting in conversion of nearly all the eroded grazing and shrub land to managed pasture and forest, a five-fold increase in grass and fodder and a near-doubling of forest productivity. While 43% of project costs were spent on user group formation and vegetative restoration, this provided most of the social, environmental and economic benefits. Structural measures, such as check dams and channel control were the most costly (57%) but provided the least livelihood and economic benefits. Interviews in 2006 with farmers and forest users in the watershed added complementary anecdotal evidence that a community’s environmental education, coupled with increased control over their local pasture and forest, provided valuable incentives for success in sustainable resource management.
A Watershed Conservation Success Story in Nepal: Land Use Changes Over 30 Years
In the middle hill region of west central Nepal in 1977, a quarter of a 113 km2 watershed experienced erosion rates exceeding 30 Mt/ha/yr due to high rainfall intensities, unstable soils, steep slopes and severe overgrazing. This increasing land degradation coupled with indiscriminate forest harvesting threatened the survival of forests and viable pasture lands. However, an innovative national government policy of handing over forest management to local people was put in place over the next three decades, resulting in conversion of nearly all the eroded grazing and shrub land to managed pasture and forest, a five-fold increase in grass and fodder and a near-doubling of forest productivity. While 43% of project costs were spent on user group formation and vegetative restoration, this provided most of the social, environmental and economic benefits. Structural measures, such as check dams and channel control were the most costly (57%) but provided the least livelihood and economic benefits. Interviews in 2006 with farmers and forest users in the watershed added complementary anecdotal evidence that a community’s environmental education, coupled with increased control over their local pasture and forest, provided valuable incentives for success in sustainable resource management.