Climate and development at the third pole : dynamics of power and knowledge reshaping community forest governance in Nepal

Abstract: Given the international climate objectives of adaptation and REDD+ being adopted in many developing countries there are growing concerns about their effects. This thesis seeks to investigate the implications of implementing climate objectives for community forestry governance. The thesis deals with the questions of how community forest management and uses are (re)shaped by the influence of governmental and non-governmental interventions and what effects the changing community forestry objectives may have on the interests of people reliant on forest resources. The thesis draws on extensive field studies and the author’s long-term engagement in development interventions and policy processes in Nepal. The analysis is primarily concerned about the dynamic of knowledge and power in (re)shaping local resource governance agenda and examines the way certain forms of knowledge and discourses get translated into interventions, transforming rules and practices in community forest management. The analysis conceptualizes power, where knowledge is a product as well as an influence. The analysis also pays attention to how knowledge and discourses are mobilized by actors towards certain ends. Findings shows that the community forestry objectives and priorities have shifted over time prioritizing certain resources such as timber as a source of revenue and undermining local needs of livelihoods and food security. Such shifts were found to have been influenced by a combination of factors, including broader socio-economic changes shifting the role of forest in peoples’ lives, scientific expertise and governmental and non-governmental interventions. I argue that the climate policy objectives that are superimposed on the established community forestry institutions can bring new forces that fuel the ongoing changes in forest management objectives and enhance the technical and bureaucratic influence on community forests management. The technical and bureaucratic nature of interventions under donor funded projects on climate change have reinforced the way forests are valued for monetary benefits. The projects studied appear to have limited effects in delivering the promise of supporting local livelihoods; instead the interventions, such as in REDD+ piloting, risk curtailing local rights and benefits. There is a risk that local interests in managing community forests will be subsumed to the technocratic logic of climate interventions. The development of climate-related policy and interventions need to pay greater attention to the dynamics of knowledge and power and safeguard local interests against those of local elites, experts and external organizations.