Local benefits from community forests in the middle hills of Nepal Bhim Adhikari, Frances Williams, Jon C. Lovett * Centre for Ecology, Law and Policy, Environment Department, The University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD, UK Received 26 October 2004; received in revised form 5 October 2005; accepted 8 November 2005 Abstract Community forestry has been in existence for about 20 years in Nepal, but there are few observations on changes in resource use since its inception. This study aims to investigate how farmers affected by community forestry have adapted to its introduction and whether their livelihood options have changed in response to changes in forest accessibility and forest product availability. A total of 309 households were interviewed in eight forest user groups in the middle hills of Nepal and results on reported changes in forest product collection and livestock numbers analysed. Reported forest product collection has increased since the introduction of community forestry, while livestock numbers have decreased. The main findings of the study are that, despite controlled access to the forest, collection rates have increased slightly in the majority of income groups and households. The number of trees on private land has increased, while the size of livestock herds has decreased. As long as the farmers can continue to adapt without adversely affecting their livelihoods they will support this forestry management system leading to an increased chance of the long term success of common property forest management in Nepal. D 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Community forestry; Adaptive management; Forest product collection; Livelihoods 1. Introduction In the last few decades community-based manage- ment of common pool resources (CPRs) has become an important land-use policy in many countries, with Nepal being one of the pioneers in introducing this system of resource management. The involvement of people in the management of local natural resources, and therefore the need to understand their attitudes towards the management systems, developed from the realisation that traditional top-down management techniques were not solving the problem of over- exploitation and subsequent environmental degrada- tion. This led to the development of community based natural resource management (CBNRM), with local communities in control of the management of their local natural resources. CBNRM programmes are based on the fact that people are likely to have more interest in conserving a forest or other natural resource that is near them, than central government or private institutions (Ostrom, 1990; Nugent, 1993; Uphoff, 1993; Wade, 1988; Bromley and Cernea, 1989; 1389-9341/$ - see front matter D 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2005.11.002 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 1904 434063; fax: +44 1904 432998. E-mail address: JL15@york.ac.uk (J.C. Lovett). Forest Policy and Economics 9 (2007) 464 – 478 www.elsevier.com/locate/forpol