Firewood and Timber Extraction

ity Managed Forests in Nepal

, Aen

Uom

nd

OSte

studdy eage=thatld fo

gem

Aroulive inreliantmentsstudiesincomeCavend

household-level forest incomes in developing countries sus-

income, e.g., when forest is converted to agricultural land(Chomitz, 2007).

lishedinven-. Suchimple-actionprod-Sometypesred to

mine the value of products extracted from a given forest. This

dicult throughout the tropics (Dawkins & Philip, 1998)

the paper was received at the Poverty Environment Networks science

workshop at theUniversity of EastAnglia in June 2011. Further input to the

manuscript was received from three anonymous reviewers. The study was

World Development Vol. 64, pp. S113S124, 2014 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

0305-750X/$ - see front matter

6/j.worlddev.2014.03.011In Sunderlin et al.s (2005: 1394) review of how poverty alle-tainable? The answer has developmental and environmentalpolicy consequencesif forest incomes are not sustainable thismay result in higher levels of poverty among already poor rur-al households coupled with forest resources degradation. In-deed, there are ample examples of unsustainable forest

*We thank all the households and communities that participated in the

study. Faculty from both the Pokhara and Hetauda campuses of the Inst-

itute of Forestry contributed to data collection. Input to an earlier version ofreducing poverty (Fisher, 2004; Shackleton, Shackleton, Bui-ten, & Bird, 2007). Typically, poorer households are relativelymore reliant on forest resources than the more well-o, thoughthe latter have higher absolute forest incomes (Vedeld, Angel-sen, Bojo, Sjaastad, & Berg, 2007). While our understandingof the level of importance of forest products to rural house-holds and the factors determining dierent levels of relianceis rapidly improving (Angelsen, Larsen, Lund, Smith-Hall, &Wunder, 2011), a key question remains unanswered: are

can be done for a representative random sample of householdsthrough recall-based structured surveys, although challengesto this methodology are acknowledged (Angelsen et al.,2011). Secondly, in the absence of volume and growth tables,generating the forest productivity data necessary to estimatewhether a given harvesting level is sustainable requires long-term measurement in permanent sample plots or tree ringanalysis in combination with temporary plots. However,establishing and maintaining permanent plots has provedto rural households in preventing and, in some locations,Sjaastad, & Vedeld, 2007; McElwee, 2008; Uberhuaga, Smith-Hall, & Helles, 2012; Yemiru, Roos, Campbell, & Bohlin,2010) and evidence is accumulating that forests are important

estimate values for subsistence products. Hence quantities har-vested, origin, and value need to be ascertained for a largenumber of products throughout a prolonged period to deter-viationconclud1. INTRODUCTION

nd three-quarters of the poor in developing countriesrural areas (Chen & Ravallion, 2007) and are highlyon natural resources to meet their subsistence require-and generate cash (Barbier, 2010). Household-levelhave reported average shares of forest income in totalranging from 15 to 39% (Babulo et al., 2008, 2009;ish, 2000; Kamanga, Vedeld, & Sjaastad, 2009; Mamo,

largely unmet challenge. To our knowledge, no pubstudy has combined detailed socio-economic and foresttory data to investigate if such winwin situations existstudies are costly, dicult to design, and challenging toment. Firstly, accurate estimation of forest product extrvolumes are rendered dicult by the large number ofucts, many of which have short harvesting seasons.products may also be obtained from other vegetationthan forests, e.g., meadows. And much work is requiAre Forest Incomes Sustainable?

and Productivity in Commun

HENRIK MEILBY, CARSTEN SMITH-HALLUniversity of Cop

YSTEIN JUThe International Woodland C

a

LILA PURI, SANTTribhuvan University, Institu

Summary. Lack of combined forest productivity and incomehousehold-level forest incomes in developing countries. This stuextraction, and household-level incomes in three community manand a structured household survey conducted in 2006 and 2009 (nneed to recognize the complexity of forest stand utilization, andmanagement rules are implemented, for increasing rural househo 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Key words sustainability, commons, participatory forest mana

www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddevhttp://dx.doi.org/10.101and forest conservation can be made convergent, theye that creating winwin solutions is a daunting and

S113NJA BYG, HELLE OVERGAARD LARSENhagen, Denmark

L NIELSENpany, Copenhagen, Denmark

H RAYAMAJHI *

of Forestry, Pokhara, Nepal

ies means there is scant evidence for the sustainability of ruralxamines levels and patterns of forest increment, wood productd forests in Nepal, using data from 240 permanent sample plots507 and 558, respectively). We nd that analyses of sustainabilitythere is considerable scope, by altering how existing local forestrest incomes while keeping harvesting levels sustainable.

ent, livelihoods, Himalayas, South Asiafunded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Aairs through the Council for

Development Research (FFU, Grant No. 104.Dan.8.L.716).

S114 WORLD DEVELOPMENTwhere tree ring analysis is also still in its infancy (Vetter &Wimmer, 1999). Finally, such studies require coordinated re-search across the natural and social sciences which remainschallenging (Lele & Kurien, 2011).Comprehensive investigation of forest income sustainability

(see Section 2a), assuming a constant governance framework,requires three basic building blocks: information on forestproduct quantities extracted, valuation of these quantities,and species level increment (e.g., m3 ha1yr1) estimates.While there are no studies in rural communities and naturalforests in developing countries covering all three buildingblocks, a large literature exists that deals with one or two.Forest product extraction studies typically focus on a specicproduct group, e.g., rewood, without valuing householdincome from the products. Such studies typically providelocal scale estimates of annual household consumption usinga combination of key informant interviews, footpath surveys,weight surveys, or construction timber surveys (e.g.,Appasamy, 1993; Bolton & McClaran, 2008; Fox, 1984;Metz, 1994; Singh, Rawat, & Verma, 2010; Watkins, 2009)or indirect measures such as recording tree stump diametersand ages in plots with subsequent conversion to total tree vol-ume (Bufum, Gratzer, & Tenzin, 2008; Chettri, Sharma, Deb,& Sundriyal, 2002; Sundriyal & Sharma, 1996). Higher scalestudies seek to identify determinants of household-level forestproduct consumption patterns (e.g., Dayal, 2006; Guptaa &Kohlin, 2006). Many forest income studies (mentioned above,e.g., Mamo et al., 2007; Uberhuaga et al., 2012) use struc-tured questionnaires to estimate household forest incomefor all major forest product groups. Few studies from devel-oping countries provide tree species-level growth estimates.Methods applied are biomass measurement for trees ofknown age (e.g., Applegate, Gilmour, & Mohns, 1988), treering analysis (e.g., Bolton & McClaran, 2008), and rarelytime-series measurements from permanent sample plots(Chettri et al., 2002).To avoid the large quantities of data required for compre-

hensive local evaluations of sustainability, the use of proxiesis common. For instance, proxies used to indicate forestcondition (which is then used to assess sustainability of use)are: partial vegetation structure data (e.g., Bajracharya,1983; Bufum et al., 2008; Coleman, 2009; Ganesan, 1993;Hegetschweiler, van Loon, Ryser, Rusterholz, & Baur, 2009;Maren & Vetaas, 2007), frequency of stumps (Urgensonet al., 2010), availability of used or preferred species(Appasamy, 1993; Gugushe, Grundy, Theron, & Chirwa,2008; Strde, Nebel, & Rijal, 2002; Webb & Dhakal, 2011),diversity of indicator species and dead wood availability(Christensen & Heilmann-Clausen, 2009; Christensen,Rayamajhi, & Meilby, 2009; Hegetschweiler et al., 2009),forest users and/or foresters perception of forest condition(Bajracharya, Furley, & Newton, 2005; Gibson, Williams, &Ostrom, 2005; Hayes, 2006), changes in land cover classes(Abbott & Homewood, 1999), and changes in forest productavailability (Urgenson et al., 2010) or collection time (Baland,Bardhan, Das, Mookherjee, & Sarkar, 2010). Most sustain-ability proxy studies ignore valuation and income or use roughproxies such as the percent of households that depend sub-stantially on the forest for subsistence livelihoods as an indica-tor of livelihood contributions of the same forest (Persha,Agrawal, & Chhatre, 2011, p. 1606). At any rate, when assess-ing sustainability it is advantageous to use inventories ratherthan proxies as this allows for a more accurate and nuancedunderstanding of the many complex aspects involved, includ-

ing spatial, temporal, species and intra-species variations.There is thus a dearth of studies that combine detailed locallevel forest inventories with carefully collected household in-come data. The present study contributes to lling this gap,emphasizing inventories of forest trees and incomes fromwood products. It uses data from Nepal, where the aims ofthe national-level community based forest management pro-gram are to conserve the forest while improving the liveli-hoods of forest users, primarily through subsistenceprovision of forest products (Acharya, 2002). There is generalagreement in the literature that implementation of communityforestry in Nepal has resulted in increased forest product sup-ply and improved environmental conditions at the forest standlevel (e.g., Pandit & Bevilacqua, 2011; Tachibana & Adhikari,2009; Thoms, 2008). Studies of the nancial consequences ofthis to households are, however, few (Adhikari, Falco, & Lov-ett, 2004; Adhikari, Williams, & Lovett, 2007; Malla, 2000)and do not include quantitative estimates of impacts on house-hold income. In three dierent sites we empirically investigatecurrent wood-based forest incomes and whether these can bemaintained without reducing the woody biomass. We combinestructured household surveys focused on eliciting income(Angelsen et al., 2011) with biophysical data from permanentsample plots (Meilby, Puri, Christensen, & Rayamajhi, 2006),i.e., we monitor households as well as the actual forests theyuse. This allows a detailed analysis of forest sustainability(at forest stand level, for individual species, and across diam-eter classes) which is combined with price data to estimate sus-tainable household forest income. We compare existingharvest levels against the annual increment in forest wood bio-mass, and compare household benets under the currentimplementation of extraction rules (harvest of wood biomassonly for rewood) with potential benets under alternativeimplementation of extraction rules (commercial harvest andsale of timber). Using these data we evaluate to what degreecurrent extraction levels are sustainable and whether house-holds could potentially derive higher sustainable forest income.Policy implications are briey discussed. Analyzing issues of ac-cess and distribution of benets from community forests as wellas the various reasons behind current regulations, while equallyimportant, are beyond the scope of this study.

2. METHODS

Data were obtained through a combination of household in-come and forest inventory surveys. The quantity of forestproducts extracted was assessed through both household recalland recording of tree stumps over time in permanent sampleplots. Product values were obtained from household respon-dents and market surveys, and species-level tree increment esti-mates were obtained from repeated measurements in the plots.

(a) Applied denitions

Total annual household income is the sum of incomes (bothsubsistence and cash) from all sources, measured in incomeper adjusted adult equivalent unit (Cavendish, 2002), of house-hold economic activities throughout a one-year period. We usethe value added income measure (Sjaastad, Angelsen, Vedeld,& Bojo, 2005): all reported income is gross value minus costsof intermediate inputs and capital costs (own labor costs arethus not subtracted). Total income is aggregated by incomein four sectors. Forest income is the sum of the values resultingfrom extraction of raw materials from forest, processing forestproducts, and wages for forest-related activities. Environmen-

tal income is value added from extraction of non-cultivated

products collected outside the forest. 1 Farm income is the eco-nomic value from crop and livestock production includingwages for on-farm work. Crop income derives from subsis-tence and cash annual and perennial crops, including fromagroforestry and horticulture; livestock income comprises sub-sistence use and sales of livestock products, also live animals,and services but excludes incremental stock value changes.Non-farm income refers to income from other sources thanthe three above: primarily self-owned businesses, remittances,pensions, and non-farm salaries and wages.Inspired by Haberl et al. (2006), forest income is narrowly

dened as sustainable if the wood-based forest products,whose harvest results in the income, can be sustained without

timber community forest members have to purchase a permitfrom the local forest user group committee. Forests in theLowlands and Middle hills sites are managed by Forest UserGroups (FUGs) while management in the High mountains siteis by Conservation Area Management Committees (CAMCs).The Forest User Group in the Lowlands site, located in the

Upper lowlands (Siwaliks), was established in 1995 by mi-grants who had come from the middle hills since the 1950s.The handed over forest was partly deforested as a consequenceof the settlement process and excessive harvesting, but laterforest improvement was promoted by widespread regenerationof Shorea robusta Gaertn. and limited planting of Dalbergiasisoo Roxb. ex DC. (both are valuable timber species) in lower

the

Kas100By

VegSch

79.0Yes

ARE FOREST INCOMES SUSTAINABLE? FIREWOOD AND TIMBER EXTRACTION AND PRODUCTIVITY IN COMMUNITY S115long-term decrease in forest biomass. Forest biomass is as-sumed not to be compromised if, in the long term, the annualharvest does not exceed 80% of the annual increment ofwoody biomass. This percentage is similar to the adjustmentfactor applied by, e.g., Meyer (1943) and represents a marginof safety which ascertains that woody biomass is not overex-ploited even if its increment is overestimated slightly (e.g.,due to short-term climatic uctuations or the fact that mea-surements are only ve years apart), or if current stocking isbelow the normal level. Note that the applied denition meansthat forest income can be sustainable even if ecological or so-cial sustainability is not maintained, e.g., if one species disap-pears, forest income is sustainable if the same income can bederived from other species.

(b) Study sites

Three study sites were selected in 2004 to cover the altitudi-nal variation in Nepal (Meilby et al., 2006) and thereby thevariation in agricultural production, forest types, and marketaccess (Table 1). Here they are referred to as the Lowlands,Middle hills and High mountains sites. Forest managementat all sites is subject to similar governance constraints 2: forestsare government owned, communities have use and manage-ment rights, and there is a high degree of rule enforcement.In general, there is little deforestation at any of the sites. Prod-ucts such as rewood are typically harvested by individualhouseholds. Commercial sale of timber is de jure allowed butdoes not de facto take place as the procedures are complexand not encouraged by local forest administrations. Local for-est user groups are required to submit management plansdetailing rules for collection of rewood and non-timber forestproducts, annual allowable cut, rotational harvesting andregeneration, etc., to the Department of Forests for approval.De facto, most forest management plans are drawn up by theDepartment of Forests; they typically limit rewood collectionto dead wood and set a low quota for timber extraction whichmay only be used for community or personal purposes. To cut

Table 1. Characteristics of

Site name Lowlands

District ChitwanElevation (meters above sea level) 350Accessibility By motorable gravel road

Main livelihood activities Vegetable and rice farmingDominant forest typesa Shorea robustaForest area (ha) 760.1Private trees on agricultural land Yes

No. of households in community, 2006 1542 222

a Terminology according to Stainton (1972).lying at areas. The infrastructure and market access in theNepalese lowland are generally good and the Lowland studysite represents the widely found situation where commercialvegetable farming is an important income-generating activity.The FUG in the peri-urban Middle hills site has managed itsforest informally since 1972 and formally since 2002. The for-est mainly consists of relatively mature Schima wallichii (DC.)Korth. and Castanopsis indica (J. Roxb. ex Lindl.) A. DC.,two medium-value timber species. Most households are en-gaged in commercial vegetable production and have accessto non-farm employment in the nearby city area. Large partsof the Nepalese Middle hills are located far from motorableroads and cities and in this sense the Middle hills site is repre-sentative only of a limited number of market-close sites. TheHigh mountains site has relatively low population densityand the forests are less degraded. Here the forest has been for-mally managed by the users since 1992 under the auspices ofthe National Trust for Nature Conservation, a national con-servation-oriented non-governmental organization. The forestis dominated by Pinus wallichiana A.B. Jacks. and some old-growth Tsuga dumosa (D. Don) Eichler, two valuable timberspecies. Tourism and agriculture are important sources of in-come. One community in the High mountains site is locatedon a tourist trail, and from 2008 connected to a road, whilethe other is o trail and more representative of the general sit-uation in the High mountains. In all sites, remittances consti-tute an important source of income.

(c) Data collection

The forest inventory was conducted in the spring of 2005and repeated in 2010; it followed a common research protocolfor forest plot location, measurements in permanent plots, anddata handling. It was explicitly agreed with the local commu-nities that forest utilization should continue unchanged, alsoin the permanent forest plots. The inventory emphasized treeswith a diameter of at least 2 cm. With the purpose of obtaininga sample that would both be suitable for estimation of

three study sites in Nepal

Middle hills High mountains

ki Mustang0 22003000tarmac road, bus service By plane and foot, from 2008

by gravel roadetable farming, non-farm employment Tourism, farmingima-Castanopsis Pinus wallichiana

1177.8No

300

increment and extraction, forest areas were stratied based onspecies-level basal area and distance to the village. The spatialdistribution of plots (n = 241) established in 2005 followed acoee-house 3 design within each stratum (Muller, 2001).Measurements in plots followed a nested design and includedtree species identication, tree positioning and diameter atbreast height (DBH) measurement for all trees. Tree height,health, and quality were measured for a species-stratied setof panel trees (1363 trees in 2005, 1266 trees in 2010). Treesthat had reached a sucient diameter size between the twomeasurements were recorded as ingrowth. All plots exceptone in the High mountains site were found again in 2010and re-measured (hence, n = 240). Trees felled during 2005

Sector-wise household income per adult equivalent unit(aeu) was calculated in each site (Cavendish, 2002), includingtotal annual mean forest income per aeu per forest productgroup. Household-level woody biomass extraction from theforest was calculated based on amounts of timber, rewood,and poles extracted. 4 Price data was combined with biophys-ical data (annual increment per forest product group) to esti-mate potential average annual household-level sustainableforest incomes. Setting the sustainable harvest at 80% of theincrement, potential forest incomes were calculated for twoscenarios (only rewood income; timber income when poten-tially possible (diameter >10 cm) and the remaining biomassyielding rewood income) using prices from the household

(not shown) almost disappeared as these plantation areas wereconverted to other uses (community-based income-generating

3) t20

plot

)

20t w

S116 WORLD DEVELOPMENT10 were identied by registering stumps in 2010.The household survey data collection and handling followed

the Poverty Environment Network (Angelsen et al., 2011;PEN, 2007a, 2007b) procedures and were thus similar acrossthe three sites. Data collection included site-level qualitativebackground information and four quarterly household(n = 507 in 2006 and 558 in 2009) surveys eliciting all maincomponents of total (cash and subsistence) household income.Reported local units of weight and volume were measuredrepeatedly until suciently consistent results were obtained(standard error less than 10% for all major products) and con-verted to SI units. Local market surveys and value qualitychecks (Wunder, Luckert, & Smith-Hall, 2011) conrmedthe validity of own-reported product prices. In addition tohousehold income from forests, FUG and CAMC incomefrom timber extraction for member and community use waselicited through interviews with executive committee represen-tatives.

(d) Data analyses

For each permanent sample plot, for each year of measure-ment (2005 and 2010) and for each tree class (1: live at bothmeasurement occasions, 2: dead and still present in the forest,3: harvested, and 4: ingrowth), measures of stand density (treesper ha and basal area) and volume (m3 ha1) were estimatedfor trees in 10-cm diameter classes for main species and resid-ual groups. Total volume, i.e., including both biomass lessthan 10-cm diameter that is an important source of rewoodand the usual timber volume (diameter >10 cm), were esti-mated using volume functions developed by Sharma andPukkala (1990). Plot, stratum, and forest level estimates forstanding stock in 2005 and 2010 and the increment were calcu-lated and compared with the estimated harvest. This was doneseparately for species groups and diameter classes. Spatialinterpolation was carried out using kriging, and maps showingthe spatial variation of the change of stocking from 2005 to2010 were prepared.

Table 2. Overview of absolute and relative distribution (%) of trees (n = 9602005

Tree classa Lowlands (66 plots) Middle hills (52

Live 2224 (61.5) 1786 (75.2)Dead 4 (0.1) 6 (0.3)Harvested 756 (20.9) 402 (16.9)Ingrowth 633 (17.5) 180 (7.6)Missing 1 (0.0) 0 (0.0)Total 3618 (100.0) 2374 (100.0

a Live trees were alive both in 2005 and 2010; Dead trees were alive infelled during 200510; Ingrowth are trees that were measured in 2010 bu

measurements recorded.activities such as sericulture). In the High mountains site, a

o categories based on permanent sample plot (n = 240) data, per site, Nepal,10

s) High mountains (122 plots) Total (240 plots)

3101 (85.9) 7111 (74.0)40 (1.1) 50 (0.5)254 (7.0) 1412 (14.7)210 (5.8) 1023 (10.7)6 (0.2) 7 (0.1)

3611 (100.0) 9603 (100.0)

05 and dead but still present in the forest in 2010; Harvested trees wereere too small in 2005; Missing are trees that were registered but with noand market surveys.

3. RESULTS

Results on forest stocking (volume of wood), increment, andextraction from the biophysical survey are presented, followedby results on forest income from the socio-economic survey.Lastly, levels of sustainable household-level forest incomeare estimated.

(a) Biophysical results

A total of 9603 trees were registered of which 7111 werealive in both 2005 and 2010, 1023 new trees were measuredin 2010 (ingrowth), and 1412 trees were harvested in the period(Table 2). Seven trees were missing from the database (i.e.,their presence was registered but they were neither measuredin 2005 or 2010); 50 trees registered in 2005 were recordedas standing dead trees in 2010.Extraction of wood biomass in the Lowlands and High

mountains sites ranged from 28 to 43% of the increment inthe study period (Table 3). In the Middle hills site, the averageannual extraction was more than three times the average an-nual increment; the standing stock in this forest was decreasedby 14% (from 207.5 to 178.1 m3 ha1). Annual extraction g-ures derived from the household survey were similar to thosefrom the plot data, with a tendency for the household reportedextraction gures to be lower (up to 18% lower).Patterns of forest utilization diered between the three sites

(Figures 1 and 2). In the Lowlands site, most of the incrementtook place in the 1020-cm diameter class while harvest wasmainly taking place in large diameter classes with relatively lit-tle standing stock; the standing stock of S. robusta increasedby 29% (from 77.5 to 99.8 m3 ha1) while Dalbergia sissoo

nt sveys

eme

IMTable 3. Forest area, stock, increment and extraction data based on permanein 2006 and 558 in 2009) sur

Site Forest area Standing stock Change ofstock

Incr

ARE FOREST INCOMES SUSTAINABLE? FIREWOOD AND Tsmall increase in standing stock was observed across almost alldiameter classes and for both main species. In the Middle hillssite, the standing stock was reduced in virtually all diameterclasses, and standing stock for the main species S. wallichiiand C. indica was reduced while the standing stock for otherspecies remained stable.

V2005 V2010a

(ha) (m3) (m3) (m3) (m3)

Lowlands 760.1 86,195 101,832 15,638 29,02Middle hills 79.0 16,392 14,073 2319 993High mountains 1177.8 334,309 348,018 13,709 26,20

a The standing stock in 2010 is calculated as the sum of the volumes of live trb The increment in the ve-year period is the change in volume of trees alive bc Estimates of wood product extraction (m3) from forests is the sum of (i) housand (ii) average annual extraction from 2005 to 2010 for community purposesd The recorded extraction from plots was 2671 m3 yr1. However, approx. 40%Maoist cantonments; villagers did not get the products from the clear-cuttingcutting would bring the extraction:increment ratio to 0.46.

Middle hills

S t a

n d

i n

g

s t o

c k

(

1 0

0 0

m3

)

0

1

2

3

4

5

High mountains

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Lowlands

D i a m e t e r c l a

0-10

10-20

20-30

30-40

40-50

50

0

10

20

30

40

Figure 1. Changes in standing stock (m3) across diameter classes, per site, Nepaassigned inample plot (n = 240) data and extraction data based on household (n = 507, per site, Nepal, 20052010

ntb Annual values Increment Extraction

BER EXTRACTION AND PRODUCTIVITY IN COMMUNITY S117Within the sites, changes in standing stock also displayedspatial variation. Figure 3 illustrates changes in the Middlehills site where harvest exceeded increment in the stratumcharacterized by old forest while regeneration took place inlarge parts of the other strata. Stock changes in the Lowlandssite included decreases due to conversion of forest land

Increment Extraction(plot data)

Extraction(hh data)c

Surplus(plot data)

(plot data):Increment

(m3 yr1) (m3 yr1) (m3 yr1) (m3 yr1) Ratio

5 5805 1603d 1316 3134 0.28199 647 624 449 3.26

2 5240 2263 1932 2977 0.43

ees and ingrowth.oth in 2005 and 2010, plus the volume of ingrowth.eholds own-reported gures, mean of 2006 (n = 507) and 2009 (n = 558),as reported by FUGs and CAMCs.of the extraction was from clear-cutting for the establishment of temporaryand this amount is hence excluded from the analysis. Including this clear-

20052010

s s i n 2 0 0 5 ( c m )

-60 60-70

70-80

80-90

90-100 >10

0

l, 20052010 (trees have been kept in the diameter class to which they were

2005).

VE200

1214

S118 WORLD DE(D. sissoo plantations) to other land uses and selective fellingin natural old forest, and increases in regenerating young for-est. In the High mountains site, standing stock was built up instrata with younger forest while reduction in standing stockwas only found close to some human settlements.

Lowlands Middle

Shorea Oth

er

Castan

opsis

Schima

Stan

ding

sto

ck (1

000

m3 )

0

50

100

150

02468

10

Figure 2. Changes in standing stock (m3) ac

0 m 200 m 400 m 600 m

Figure 3. Overview of permanent sample plot locations (squares), strata and20052010. The households are loLOPMENT(b) Socio-economic results

Average relative household-level forest income was 6.8%,ranging from 3.0% to 11.3% (Table 4). It was lowest in theLowlands and highest in the High mountains. Environmental

hills High mountains

Other

Pinus

Tsuga

Other

20052010

ross species, per site, Nepal, 20052010.

-180

-160

-140

-120

-100

-80

-60

-40

-20

0

20

800 m

Changem3ha-1

changes in standing stock (m3 ha1) in the forest of the Middle hills site,cated south-east of the forest.

ncom20

A

17

2

1

8

15441

4

262

IMTable 4. Total annual mean household absolute (USD PPPa) and relative i(n = 507) and

Income source Lowlands

Absb Relc

Forest income 59.6 3.0Firewood 22.8 1.1Timber/furniture 1.5 0.1Poles/sticks/utensils 2.6 0.1Charcoal 0.5 0.0Bamboo 0.1 0.0Leaf litter/fodder grass 11.1 0.6Mushrooms/wild vegetables 0.8 0.0Wild fruits/medicinal plants/others 16.1 0.8Forestry wage 4.1 0.2

Environmental income 163.0 8.2

Farm income 685.6 34.4

Non-farm income 1085.7 54.5Remittances 606.8 30.4Pensions 163.3 8.2Business 121.8 6.1Non-farm wage work 69.5 3.5Other 124.4 6.2

Total income 1993.9 100.0No. of obs. 446 41.9

a 1 USD PPP = 22.65 Nr in 2005 (World Bank, 2011).bAbs = absolute income.cRel = relative income (%).

ARE FOREST INCOMES SUSTAINABLE? FIREWOOD AND Tincome, ranging from 1.4% to 8.2% with an average of 4.6%,displayed the opposite pattern. In all sites, wood productswere primarily extracted from forests, from 73.5% of totalwood volume in the Lowlands to 99.0% in the High moun-tains. Income from rewood, poles, and timber, the productsfor which annual increment was assessed through the biophys-ical survey, contributed 51.7% of the average forest incomeacross sites, from 49.0% in the High mountains to 70.2% inthe Middle hills. Non-farm income was the most important in-come source, ranging from 51.6% to 59.7% of total householdincome, though the dominant component varied, e.g., businessin the High mountains and remittances in the Lowlands. Farmincome made up approximately a third of total household in-come in all the sites.In Table 5, average annual household forest income is

compared assuming (i) current and sustainable harvest levels(the latter based on the repeated forest inventory and esti-mated as 80% of mean annual increment), and (ii) currentand alternative implementation of rules for forest productharvesting and sale. In the Lowlands and High mountainssites the lowest annual average household forest income g-ures are under the present conditions of below-incrementharvest and only sale of rewood, while the highest sustain-able gures illustrate the hypothetical situation of harvest atsustainable levels combined with the possibility of commer-cial timber sales. If the latter scenario was realized, it wouldincrease average household forest incomes ten-fold in theLowlands and three-fold in the High mountains. Allowingfor commercial timber sales at current harvest levels wouldincrease household wood-based forest incomes from 52 to173% depending on site. In the Middle hills site, the sustain-able harvest level would decrease average household incometo half (commercial timber sales allowed) or a quarter (re-wood only).e per adult equivalent unit by income source and site, Nepal, mean of 200609 (n = 558)

Middle hills High mountains Sample mean

bs Rel Abs Rel Abs Rel

15.0 4.3 314.8 11.3 164.1 6.84.9 2.8 73.6 2.6 52.6 2.24.9 0.2 59.6 2.1 23.3 1.00.9 0.0 20.9 0.8 8.9 0.40.0 0.0 10.1 0.4 3.8 0.20.2 0.0 25.7 0.9 9.3 0.42.2 0.1 43.4 1.6 21.0 0.90.0 0.0 29.9 1.1 11.2 0.55.0 0.9 32.5 1.2 23.9 1.06.9 0.3 19.1 0.7 10.1 0.4

29.1 4.8 39.6 1.4 111.4 4.6

30.5 31.2 990 35.6 829.1 34.1

90.4 59.7 1435.4 51.6 1323.3 54.597.0 18.7 383.0 13.8 503.6 20.785.9 18.2 105.4 3.8 212.1 8.753.9 5.8 597.1 21.5 300.6 12.44.5 0.2 147.2 5.3 83.7 3.449.1 16.9 202.7 7.3 223.3 9.2

64.9 100.0 2779.7 100 2428.0 100.034 22.0 385 36.1 1065 100.0

BER EXTRACTION AND PRODUCTIVITY IN COMMUNITY S1194. DISCUSSION

While forest income is not a dominant income source to rur-al households in the study sites, it still makes up 3.011.3% oftotal household income and is thus arguably important. This isparticularly so given the generally low levels of household in-come and the slow national economic growth (average annualGNI per capita growth of 1.4% from 2002 to 2009; WorldBank., 2011). Furthermore, Baland et al. (2010) found thatin Nepal rising incomes had a negligible eect on householdcollection of rewood as had rising costs, e.g., through in-creased collection time due to decreasing forest quality. It thusappears likely that forest product use will remain important tomost households in Nepal in the foreseeable future; this is con-rmed by the 199596 and 200304 Living Standard Measure-ment Surveys that showed an increase in the percentage ofhouseholds using rewood for cooking from 77% to 84%(Nepal, Nepal, & Grimsrud, 2010). In our study sites, theshare of rewood collecting households was constant at 84%in 2006 and 2009. In 2009, more than half (57%) claimed touse less time on rewood collection than ve years ago.

(a) Sustainability of current harvest levels

Forest level sustainability ndings can be nuanced by look-ing at three measures of within-forest sustainability: acrossspecies, diameter classes, and spatially (strata). At the forestlevel, current harvesting levels are well under the annual incre-ment in the Lowlands and High mountains sites, while in theMiddle hills site current extraction exceeds annual incrementthreefold. However, within-forest ndings show a more com-plex picture. For instance: (i) in the Middle hills site the mainspecies S. wallichii and C. indica are currently subjected tounsustainable harvesting levels while other species, typically

e (tion

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er a

fore

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VEused for non-wood purposes such as fruits and medicines, arenot unsustainably harvested, (ii) the spatial distribution ofchanges in standing stock in this site shows that there are largestrata in the forest with accumulation of standing stock, and(iii) while there is generally a large standing stock accumula-tion in the Lowlands site, large diameter classes are subjectedto above increment harvesting.The sustainability picture is further complicated when con-

sidering temporal aspects, e.g., it could be argued that house-holds in the Middle hills site are currently capitalizing on the

Table 5. Comparison of actual and potential annual household forest incom(rewood only) and alternative (timber and rewood) implementa

Species Income: actual annual ha

Firewood only Timb

Whole forest Per aeub,c Whole

Lowlands Shorea 155,884 21.2 566,4Other 104,684 14.3 145,4

Sub-total 260,567 35.5 711,9

Middle hills Castanopsis 29,945 30.2 67,1Schima 63,732 64.2 118,7Other 5,551 5.6 8,72

Sub-total 99,228 100.0 194,5

High mountains Pinus 165,585 127.8 256,5Tsuga 6,688 5.2 10,5Other 37,702 29.1 52,4

Sub-total 209,976 162.0 319,5

Total 569,771 60.9 1,226a Eighty percent of observed annual increment (Table 3).b Based on the number of households registered in 2006 (Table 1). Averaghigh mountains sites were 4.76, 4.47, and 4.32 respectively (mean of 2006c The household aeu income gures are based on inventory data and thus ninventory-derived gures (in the rewood only column under actual harve35.5 whereas it is 26.9 (the sum of values for rewood, timber, and poles)

S120 WORLD DEforest protection they have been practicing for decades. If theyallow the heavily harvested stratum and species to regenerate,as they have in the past, then current high harvesting levelscannot be termed unsustainable in the longer term. The his-tory of each site and the dierential patterns of harvestingwithin the sites thus indicate that caution should be exercisedwhen determining whether ongoing harvesting is sustainableor not. Snapshots based on proxies or partial inventories,e.g., in only one part of a forest or only including certain spe-cies, could be highly misleading.The above ndings have a number of policy implications.

First, they illustrate the importance of having volume andgrowth tables that allow calculation and projection of stockdata from basic inventory measurements. There are many lo-cally important species in natural forests in developing coun-tries for which such tables are missing; national forestauthorities should thus prioritize development of such tablesthrough a commitment to establish and manage permanentsample plots. 5 Second, quick and simple inventory techniquesthat will allow local forest users to generate stock change dataneed to be developedstandard inventory approaches arelikely too complex and costly to be widely adopted. The lattershould, however, be used to investigate which proxies are mostsuitable for local measurements; experiences have shown thatit is possible to develop high-quality local monitoring methodsthat can be replicated and scaled-up (Danielsen et al., 2010).Other authors have also called for development of appropriatelocal level forest inventory techniques that can be implementedby local people albeit for other reasons, e.g., Hull, Ojha, andPaudel (2010) argued that this would empower local commu-nities. Third, the standard approach to forest managementplanning and implementation in Nepal needs to be reconsid-ered: rather than emphasizing rigid standard conservativemanagement interventions in community forest operationalplans (Acharya, 2002; Dev & Adhikari, 2007; Yadav, Yadav,Yadav, & Thapa, 2009) these should take into account spatialand temporal species-level variations in harvesting possibili-ties. This would serve to avoid the widely reported (Adhikariet al., 2007; Gautam, Shivakoti, & Webb, 2004; Pandit & Bevi-

USD PPP yr1) in total and per adult equivalent unit (aeu) under currentof rules for actual annual harvests and sustainable harvest levels

st Income: sustainable annual harvesta

nd rewood Firewood only Timber and rewood

st Per aeub Whole forest Per aeub Whole forest Per aeub

77.2 648,347 88.3 2,551,012 347.619.8 106,641 14.5 172,450 23.597.0 754,988 102.9 2,723,461 371.1

67.6 8,323 8.4 21,526 21.7119.6 11,210 11.3 22,468 22.68.8 4,820 4.9 7,958 8.0196.1 24,354 24.5 51,952 52.4

198.0 321,157 247.8 517,573 399.48.1 60,376 46.6 96,634 74.640.5 7,430 5.7 4,914 3.8246.6 388,964 300.1 619,122 477.7

131.1 1,168,306 125.0 3,394,536 363.1

ult equivalent units (aeu) per household in the lowlands, middle hills and2009).irectly comparable to the own-reported values in Table 4. As expected theare a little higher, e.g., for the Lowlands the average per aeu in this table isable 4.

LOPMENTlacqua, 2011; Schweik, Nagendra, & Sinha, 2003; Tachibana& Adhikari, 2009; Thoms, 2008) underutilization of commu-nity forests.

(b) Sustainability of current forest incomes

In the Lowlands and High mountains sites, the wood-basedpart of the currently realized household-level forest income isassessed to be sustainable. Even if there are concerns regardingwithin-forest sustainability in each of these forests as discussedabove, current household forest incomes can easily be main-tained while addressing these concerns (e.g., by shifting har-vest spatially or between diameter classes). In the Middlehills site, current wood-based forest incomes are clearly notsustainable if not followed by periods of forest regeneration(i.e., with lower forest incomes); reducing harvests to sustain-able levels would decrease household forest incomes to 2552% of the current estimate (depending on scenario; Table 5).In the Lowlands and High mountains sites, it appears that an-nual household forest incomes can be increased substantially,up to ten-fold (Table 5).Approximately 1,652,654 households are currently involved

in community forestry in Nepal (DoF, 2011) and increasingtheir forest income could have a nationwide impact on poverty(e.g., doubling per household forest income would generate anadditional annual income of hundreds of million USD PPP).The 1993 Forest Act allows communities to commercially sellthe timber from their forests. But a complex mix of factorsinteracts to prevent this legally possible implementation of

estimates (Amacher, Hyde, & Kanel, 1999; Bajracharya,1983; Fox, 1984, 1993; Metz, 1994). 8 In general, the plot-de-

IMcurrent rules. First, community based forest management wasoriginally promoted in order to achieve conservation out-comes and meet household forest subsistence requirements(e.g., Gilmour & Fisher, 1991; Springate-Baginski & Blaikie,2007). Changing the focus to include income generation andcommercial trade may thus require a cultural change in keyinstitutions including the Department of Forests. Second,government foresters have much inuence on the design andcontents of local user groups constitutions and operationalplans which promotes the conservation-oriented approach tolocal forest management; changed operational plans must beapproved and due to lack of capacity this may take manyyears (Thoms, 2008). Third, since 2000 user groups must pre-pare operational plans based on forest inventories (now fol-lowing the 2005 Forestry Inventory and Yield RegulationGuidelines) which has further increased the reliance of usergroups on government foresters as the groups do not havethe technical knowledge to complete the inventories them-selves (Dev & Adhikari, 2007). Fourth, a substantial increasein the amount of timber harvested for commercial purposescould lower market prices and thus result in lower incomegains than those estimated here. However, the large-scaledomestic trade in illegally harvested timber from state andcommunity forests (Iversen et al., 2006; Paudel, Keeling, &Khanal, 2006) indicates a large unmet demand for timber.Allowing timber exports to neighboring countries could alsoincrease the demanddemand for timber is rising rapidly inboth India and China (ITTO, 2010). Fifth, the spatial cong-uration of biomass resources may mean that not all resourcescan be harvested, e.g., to avoid erosion on steep slopes. Sixth,lessons from the past 30 years of community-based manage-ment have shown that benets may be appropriated by elites(Gautam, 2009; Iversen et al., 2006; Malla, Neupane, & Bran-ney, 2003). Studies on income generation from non-timber for-est products indicate that it may be dicult for local people toobtain fair prices for their products (Larsen & Olsen, 2007)and the forest product trade in and from Nepal is beset withpoor governance, including local interpretation of ocial rulesand extensive rent-seeking (Larsen, Smith, & Olsen, 2005; Ol-sen & Helles, 2009; Paudel et al., 2006). It has been argued thatproblems of elite capture, distributional inequity and rent-seeking are particularly severe in the high value lowland for-ests (Iversen et al., 2006). 6 Lastly, it should be noted that localdevelopments may also directly inuence site-level prices, e.g.,the High mountains site was recently connected via road tomarkets in the lowlands. The potential increase in householdforest income under the commercial timber sale scenariosmeans that current income levels can likely be maintained evenif prices decrease signicantly. 7

Including forest wages, wood-based incomes contributed5276% of total forest income (Table 4). In the Lowlands sitethe income contributions from leaf litter and wild fruits/medicinal plants was similar (46%) but in the Middle hillsand the High mountains the contributions were lower (24%in both cases). Thus, at least in the Lowlands site, a more com-plete assessment of the sustainability of forest income wouldrequire data on the availability of forest litter and fruits/medicinal plants. The availability of forest litter is related tothe woody biomass and is therefore partly and indirectly cov-ered by the present analysis, but continued extraction of alarge proportion of the litter deposited may lead to reductionof nutrient pools (Fisk & Fahey, 2001), thus potentially jeop-ardizing forest incomes in the very long term. Wild fruits andmedicinal plants include products harvested from a large num-

ARE FOREST INCOMES SUSTAINABLE? FIREWOOD AND Tber of species, some of which are scattered, sparse, inconspic-uous, or only visible during a short season. Designing anrived harvest volume is slightly underestimated as incrementafter registration in 2005 is not counted (it is not known inwhat year trees were harvested). By contrast, the incrementrepresented by ingrowth is overestimated slightly as the vol-ume of ingrowth trees was not zero in 2005. The total volumeerror is minor as these trees are very small and thus have lowvolume. Regarding the levels of forest incomes, these are lower(311% of total household income) than reported in manyother countries (1539% mentioned in the Introduction). Pre-vious studies from Nepal have, however, also reported lowaverage forest income shares of 58% (Adhikari, 2005), 423% (Chhetri, 2005) and 622% (Aryal & Angelsen, 2007).The range reported in this paper is, while at the lower bound-ary, comparable with existing estimates.

5. CONCLUSION

This paper has focused on contributing to answering the keyquestion: are household-level forest incomes in developingcountries sustainable? It has done so using biophysical datafrom repeated measurements in 240 permanent sample plotslocated in three sites, one in each of the main physiographiczones of Nepal, and income data from 507 households in2006 and 558 households in 2009, using the forests in whichthe plots are located, collected through a repeated structuredhousehold survey.Using a simple income sustainability criterion based on the

proportion of annual increment harvested (80%) we foundthat spatial and temporal issues should be explicitly consideredin the sustainability analysis. For instance: (i) it may be thatforest income and overall extraction level at a particular siteis deemed sustainable, but that a certain species or a certainlocation within the site is being unsustainably harvested, or(ii) that current forest incomes are unsustainable but only be-cause the local community at the observed points in time iscapitalizing on its previously exercised forest protection. Thereis scope for further operationalizing the concept of forest in-come sustainability to include explicit ecological and socialinventory that covers such products as eciently and accu-rately as an inventory emphasizing woody biomass thereforeremains a challenge (Jensen & Meilby, 2012).

(c) Can we trust the ndings?

The two dierent methods used by the present study to esti-mate annual woody biomass extraction from forests providedcomparable results (Table 3), with inventory estimates being 3to 22% higher than household-derived estimates. This is likelycaused by lack of recall of all products harvested as well asunderreporting as not all household product collection is inaccordance with local rules; non-reported harvesting by out-siders may also play a role, e.g., during our eld work thearmy was observed cutting trees in the High mountains site,while the Maoist army (Table 3, footnote) was seen harvestingforest products in the Lowlands site.The most widely studied forest product in Nepal is rewood;

we nd the expected pattern of decreasing per capita rewoodextraction from forests, and increasing extraction from non-forest environmental resources, from high to low altitude(Bhatt & Sachan, 2004) and extracted per capita freshwoodrewood quantities are comparable to previously reported

BER EXTRACTION AND PRODUCTIVITY IN COMMUNITY S121dimensions of forest utilization. Household-level forest in-comes were sustainable at two of the three sites (unsustainable

forest, species composition and age class distribution as well as need to be explicitly addressed.

NOTES

Schima wallichii, 0.685 g/cm3 (Middle hills), Pinus wallichiana, 0.400 g/cm3 consumption estimates.

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6. This study has focused on answering the question on whetherhousehold-level forest incomes are sustainable. This can be seen as partof a wider discussion of whether the use of forests for poverty preventionand reduction is compatible with forest conservation. Addressing thisbroader issue is important but outside the scope of this paper as it requiresfurther detailed analysis of changes in household income portfolio overtime and the factors determining these changes.

7. This study only investigates the sustainability of wood productincomes (timber, rewood, poles). As seen in Table 4 there are many non-wood forest products, e.g. bamboo, mushrooms and medicinal herbs, thatalso contribute to local incomes. The sustainability of use of theseproducts, accounting for 29.8-51.0% of average household income, is notassessed in this analysis.

8. Note that our ndings may not be directly comparable to thosepublished in the literature: the latter are typically own-consumptionestimates while ours are extraction for own-consumption plus for sale. Insome locations, own-consumption estimates would be the sum ofextraction plus purchased rewood. Comparison is also complicated byuse of dierent data collection methods, e.g. Fox (1984) has argued thatweight surveys are necessary to obtain valid per capita rewoodin one site due to the reduction of standing stock). Providedthat maintaining present stocking levels (very low in the Low-lands site) is deemed acceptable, and that presently unex-ploited harvesting options are actually as valuable as theyseem, sustainable household-level forest incomes could be in-creased signicantly, up to ten-fold, by altering the implemen-tation of rules for community based forest management toallow commercial harvest and sale of timber. This could in-crease the income of a very large number of rural households,with possible nationwide poverty reduction eects, while keep-ing harvests within sustainable levels. The potential income in-crease in a particular location would vary with the size of the

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Are Forest Incomes Sustainable? Firewood and Timber Extraction and Productivity in Community Managed Forests in Nepal1 Introduction2 Methods(a) Applied definitions(b) Study sites(c) Data collection(d) Data analyses

3 Results(a) Biophysical results(b) Socio-economic results

4 Discussion(a) Sustainability of current harvest levels(b) Sustainability of current forest incomes(c) Can we trust the findings?

5 ConclusionReferences