THE REHABILITATION OF FOREST LAND IN NEPAL

This article describes a "farm forestry" approach aimed at planting trees on both farms and common land in and around two villages in Nepal. One village did extremely well in converting its impoverished economy and degraded environment to a path of sustainable development. The other village did equally well growing trees on private farms but has so far failed to reforest its commons. It was found that in order for common property resource management to succeed, a genuine need for the resulting goods and services was required, the ethnic group had to be socio-economically homogeneous, the benefits had to materialize quickly, and local leadership had to be effective to enforce collective rules.