1 Tropentag 2009 University of Hamburg, October 6-8, 2009 Conference on International Research on Food Security, Natural Resource Management and Rural Development Does Community Forestry Contribute to Poverty Reduction? An Evidence from Nepal Baral Sony 1* , Sekot Walter 2 and Vacik Harald 3 1 Asia Network for Sustainable Agriculture and Bioresources (ANSAB), Kathmandu, Nepal 2 ,3 University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Peter-Jordanstr. 82, A-1190 Vienna, Austria Introduction Community forestry, which was initiated in Nepal during late 1970s, is considered one of the successful programs in forestry sector of Nepal for conserving and supplying basic household requirements such as timber, fodder and fuelwood. However, contribution of community forestry in reducing poverty is always a matter of discourse. Community forestry is being criticized of being under elite domination (Thoms 2008). It is frequently argued that the poorer households of community forest user group (CFUG) are getting considerably less benefit from community forestry than better off households (Malla et al. 2003 and Pokharel and Nurse 2004). Generally better off households in CFUG are less depends on community forest as they possess large landholdings which fulfill their major requirement of fuelwood and fodder. On the other hand better off households mostly are in key positions of decision making forums (Gauli and Rishi 2004 and Thoms 2008). Being in the key positions and low dependent on community forest, they usually enforced strict regulations in harvesting forest products for the shake of conservation (KC 2004). This has resulted in underutilization of community forest resources (Khanal 2002). Pokharel and Nurse (2004) have suggested for active community forest management by commercializing their forest products for the betterment of poor users. In recent years, some CFUGs have been adopting commercial forest management to manage their resources (Gauli and Baral 2008). In order to see whether commercial management of community forest is contributing to poor’s households this study did the economic analysis of two community forest user groups in Dolaka district. Methods The study was conducted in Kalobhir and Bhitteripakha CFUGs of Dolakha district, which is located about 150 km east of Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal. Required data for the study was collected from July to September 2007. In order to collect data, all the households in the studied CFUG were first classified into four economic groups- very poor, poor, medium and rich with the help of participatory wellbeing ranking methods (see Gauli 2003 for detail). Required data for the study was collected through household survey using questionnaire. 25% households were selected randomly from each economic class. Detailed information was collected on types and quantities of forest products collected for both commercial and subsistence uses. Quantity of forest products used for subsistence use was converted into monitory value through indirect pricing methods as described by Gregersen et al. (1995). Apart from the household survey, two group discussions were also conducted. The data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). Kruskal-Wallis test (a non-parametric test) was used to see the difference 1 Contact author: Sonybaral@gmail.com