Inventory of non-timber forest products in Western Nepal and strategies for sustainable management

Authors

  • Pramila Dhakal Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, Tribhuvan University
  • Dev R Paudel Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, Tribhuvan University
  • Dilli Ram Baral Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, Tribhuvan University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3126/ije.v5i3.15707

Keywords:

NTFP, MAPs, sustainable, community-forest, policy

Abstract

Non-timber Forest Products (NTFPs) play an important role as traditional source for food, fiber, fodder, and medicine and offer income opportunities for poverty alleviation especially in rural households in Nepal who engage in a widespread trade of NTFPs. Adequate planning for sustainable use of NTFPs is imperative so we explored the inventory of multipurpose trees and herbs that are being used as NTFPs in Chitwan, Nepal. 70 households from Sukranagar and Mangalpur VDCs of Chitwan district were randomly selected and personal interviews were taken with them as well as focus group discussions were done. The community had been utilizing 49 plant species from the nearby community forest. Implementation of the policy of community forestry was found to have a positive impact on the sustainable production of NTFPs. More than 80% of the respondents believed that indigenous knowledge promoted sustainable NTFP production. Kurilo (Asparagus officinalis) was found to be the best NTFP for the study site. Various policy level reforms are proposed that will help in improving the sustainable production of NTFPs. Better utilization of NTFPs as well as their conservation is possible with proper trainings given to community forest users.

International Journal of Environment Vol.5(3) 2016, pp.87-103

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.
Abstract
1768
PDF
965

Downloads

Published

2016-09-16

How to Cite

Dhakal, P., Paudel, D. R., & Baral, D. R. (2016). Inventory of non-timber forest products in Western Nepal and strategies for sustainable management. International Journal of Environment, 5(3), 87–103. https://doi.org/10.3126/ije.v5i3.15707

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 3 (2016)

Section

Research Papers

License

The author(s) acknowledge that the manuscript submitted is his/her/their own original work; all authors participated in the work in a substantive way and are prepared to take public responsibility for the work; all authors have seen and approved the manuscript as submitted;  the manuscript has not been published and is not being submitted or considered for publication elsewhere; the text, illustrations, and any other materials included in the manuscript do not infringe(plagiarism) upon any existing copyright or other rights of anyone.

Notwithstanding the above, the Contributor(s) or, if applicable the Contributor’s Employer, retain(s) all proprietary rights other than copyright, such as Patent rights; to use, free of charge, all parts of this article for the author’s future works in books, lectures, classroom teaching or oral presentations; the right to reproduce the article for their own purposes provided the copies are not offered for sale.

The copyright to the contribution identified is transferred to IJE.