Does rural out-migration influence forest product use and household participation in community forest management?
Description
Community forestry (CF) in Nepal is considered one of the most successful environmental policies in the world, resulting in significant improvement of forest conditions. Outmigration was a rare social phenomenon at the time of CF initiation. Now it drastically influences nearly every aspect of the livelihood in Nepal. However, it is unclear how outmigration affects CF governance for sustainable rural development. Therefore, this paper addresses two major research questions: a) How does rural out-migration affect the participation in community forestry decision-making and management practices? b) How do out-migration influence the use of forest products- fuelwood, fodder, timber, pole, and animal bedding? This paper draws on the data collected from an extensive survey of 415 households (HH) from 15 community forest user groups in two Mid-Hill districts of Nepal. We used ordered logit regression to model the impacts of outmigration on the participation in forest management and decision-making. We used relative importance index (RRI) and t-tests to differentiate the impacts of out-migration and remittance on the demand of forest products and the amount of products collected from CF. We found that the HH size, caste, training opportunity, leadership position, occupation, livestock unit, well-being index were the major determinants of participation in decision-making, whereas, HH size, caste, training opportunity, leadership position, amount of fuelwood use, distance to forest from home, and CF membership duration were the major determinants of participation in forest management. RRI results show that the HH without migrants attached higher importance to all types of forest products compared to HH with migrants. The reported forest product demand was less important among the HH with migrants. Similarly, the percentage of forest product use from CF was less for HHs with migrants. This study provides valuable information for making new CF policies addressing issues arising from outmigration in rural Nepal.
Does rural out-migration influence forest product use and household participation in community forest management?
Community forestry (CF) in Nepal is considered one of the most successful environmental policies in the world, resulting in significant improvement of forest conditions. Outmigration was a rare social phenomenon at the time of CF initiation. Now it drastically influences nearly every aspect of the livelihood in Nepal. However, it is unclear how outmigration affects CF governance for sustainable rural development. Therefore, this paper addresses two major research questions: a) How does rural out-migration affect the participation in community forestry decision-making and management practices? b) How do out-migration influence the use of forest products- fuelwood, fodder, timber, pole, and animal bedding? This paper draws on the data collected from an extensive survey of 415 households (HH) from 15 community forest user groups in two Mid-Hill districts of Nepal. We used ordered logit regression to model the impacts of outmigration on the participation in forest management and decision-making. We used relative importance index (RRI) and t-tests to differentiate the impacts of out-migration and remittance on the demand of forest products and the amount of products collected from CF. We found that the HH size, caste, training opportunity, leadership position, occupation, livestock unit, well-being index were the major determinants of participation in decision-making, whereas, HH size, caste, training opportunity, leadership position, amount of fuelwood use, distance to forest from home, and CF membership duration were the major determinants of participation in forest management. RRI results show that the HH without migrants attached higher importance to all types of forest products compared to HH with migrants. The reported forest product demand was less important among the HH with migrants. Similarly, the percentage of forest product use from CF was less for HHs with migrants. This study provides valuable information for making new CF policies addressing issues arising from outmigration in rural Nepal.