FECOFUN: Forests and Food Security

Nepal is known around the world for its particularly strong community forestry concept, whereby the government legally gives the responsibility of forests to their surrounding communities. Community forestry is a village-level forestry activity, decided on collectively and implemented on communal land, where local populations participate in the planning, establishing, managing and harvesting of forest crops, and so receive a major proportion of the socio-economic and ecological benefits from the forest which alleviates rural poverty and helps sustainably manage the forest area.

The Federation of Community Forestry Users Groups, Nepal (FECOFUN) is a for-mal network of community based forest management groups from all over Nepal that represents 8.5 million forest users. This national federation and social movement organization, established in 1995, is a national advocate dedicated to promoting and protecting forest users’ rights – most of whom live in rural areas where it is a daily challenge to scrounge up two meals a day. Generally, in Nepal, each forest has an associated Community Forest User Group (CFUG) and these groups create yearly plans and business plans, in addition to providing training to the community.

While forest conservation and livelihood creation is the main focus of the CFUGs, FECOFUN could not turn a blind eye to the blatantly obvious food issues in the country. Nepal is a chronically food insecure, food deficit country, that is prone to natural disasters, such as recent consecutive years of drought – in addition to suffering through an 11-year insurgency.

FECOFUN decided to specifically implement income generating programs that focus on increased food production for rural poor participants. For example, in the Dolakha and Bajhang districts of Nepal, FECOFUN worked with another non-governmental organization, the Asia Network for Sustainable Agriculture and Biodiversity (ANSAB), to ensure that over 14,000 hectares of forest is certified for 21 Community Forest User Groups in the area. To be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, the CFUGs has to meet 10 principles and 57 criteria to show that they manage their forests in an environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable manner.

Due to the certification enabling easier exporting and marketing, the communities established two handmade paper enterprises and the poorest individuals of those areas are now getting premium prices for the raw materials they collect from the forest and are obtaining better wages than the former local rates.

The most ingenuous part of this system is that FECOFUN and ANSAB work with the community to define their own food and agricultural systems that they feel are most suited to their area geography and customs. Through many stakeholder meetings, the community came up with the idea of using the income from the paper enterprises to benefit the ultra poor of the communities – 10% of the profit from the enterprises’ shares is allocated to the poorest in the community.

Photo: FECOFUN members participating in a Rally. FECOFUN was the largest civil society movement to join in the democracy movement in Nepal.

The poorest households are also provided a part of each community forest area on lease to grow vegetables and grains, such as asparagus and gooseberries, which are native to the area. They primarily use the vegetables for their own consumption or to feed their cattle, which they keep for milk production. Without the income and profits from the paper enterprise, the ultra poor of the communities would not be able to afford their own patch of land. Additional production is also sold and FECOFUN is currently assisting the communities to process different types of forest products to create additional local employment. ANSAB has also helped the communities form cooperatives to provide market access and support through collective bargaining. In this way, higher incomes thanks to forest-based enterprises that use forest resources in a sustainable manner have translated into greater food security and improved diets, particularly for the poor of the participating communities.

In this way, FECOFUN and ANSAB have helped numerous villages across Nepal link community forestry with community food security – allowing all community residents to obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance and social justice. The link between sustainably managed forests and food security must not be ignored – worldwide, forests provide employment and income for an estimated 1.2 billion people, thus allowing them to buy food. However, they also directly provide food and livelihoods for an estimated 450 million people worldwide. Forests also regulate the water cycle, protect watersheds, conserve soils, and provide shelter for agricultural crops and conserve biodiversity which may provide gene banks for future crops.

Text written by Kelli Fraser, Uniterra volunteer with FECOFUN