The slippery slopes of forest governance in the Chure range : a case study of an intervention of environmental development within local forest management in Nepal

Sammanfattning: Nepal has been portrayed as a leading country in implementing community forestry, a forest management method which puts the responsibility of forest management on local communities to mitigate forest degradation. The socioeconomically important and geologically fragile Chure range, where a third of forest is managed by community forest groups, has received special political attention the last few years and due to reported environmental degradation across the area. Nepal’s government decided to intervene in order to curb these environmental problems. In 2010 the Rastrapati Chure Conservation Program was initiated, which has since entailed a range of policy decisions aimed at protecting Chure from further degradation. The causes of degradation have been attributed to the local forest users and consequently the community forest users have been targeted within the intervention. New regulations have resulted in limited possibilities for the forest user groups to continue their management as before. As a result, organizations in favour of community forestry have opposed the Chure intervention. This thesis explores the Chure intervention and its effects through a theoretical framework based on theories of governmentality from three theorists. Research was conducted in a qualitative field study in Kathmandu and Chitwan. With the findings from the research and the theoretical framework, this thesis attempts to explain why the government has implemented the Chure intervention, how they justify it and what effects and response the intervention has generated in a local Chure community in Chitwan district. The result suggests a change in rationality and problematization of forest degradation within the government and a change in practices which justifies the shape of and chosen solution to the Chure intervention. The community forest users’ representative organization is actively protesting and opposing the Chure intervention but on local level effects have yet to reach individual households. However, the effects of reduced communal funds are on the verge of reaching especially the poorest groups.